> Остроумно.

Какой вопрос, такой ответ.

Ну, ладно, Вы, надо полагать, хотели увидеть этот самый «список владельцев». Что ж, вот Вам полная цитата из статьи Р. Стронга, раскрывающая все имеющиеся сведения об истории картины якобы до 1937 века:

«In the year 1728 the antiquarian George Vertue paid a visit to Northumberland House in the Strand. He made his usual staccato memoranda in his notebooks on the pictures, in this instance, ones of the present owner, of Henry VIII, a triple portrait by Dobson but, following a reference to the great Titian of the Cornaro family now in the National Gallery, London, comes a short description of a miniature: 'a Lord Percy a limning lying on the ground, dyd about 1585. in Syon Gardens' (здесь дана ссылка на источник №1 – M.).

In this entry we have the earliest certain reference to Nicholas Hilliard's miniature of Henry Percy, ninth Earl of Northumberland (see cover). The owner of the house at that date was Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, known as the Proud Duke, who had married the Percy heiress, Elizabeth, daughter of the eleventh Earl of Northumberland. Although the identity of the miniature had by then seemingly been lost the subject was in fact the Duchess's great-grandfather. Its appearance in Northumberland House would certainly seem to indicate that there is no need to doubt its descent within the family from the time that it was painted. That descent would have been from the ninth Earl to his son, Algernon, tenth Earl of Northumberland (1602-68) and from him to his son, Joceline, the eleventh Earl (1644-70). He left as his only child, Elizabeth, who married as her third husband the Proud Duke. For the miniature's subsequent descent we have to turn to the Duke's second wife, Charlotte, daughter of Daniel Heneage Finch, Earl of Winchilsea and Nottingham. Their daughter, Charlotte, married Heneage, 3rd Earl of Aylesford in 1750. At the time of the marriage her step-brother, Algernon, seventh Duke of Somerset, had begun extensive changes to the old Jacobean house 'to make it less like a prison' (здесь дана ссылка на источник №2 – M.). and it is conceivable that the miniature passed to her in the process of dismembering the earlier interior to make way for the work of Adam. From her it descended directly in the family of the Earls of Aylesford until it was sold from their collection at Christie's on 23rd July 1937 (lot 45) (здесь дана ссылка на источник №3 – M.).»

Вот, собственно, и весь провенанс обсуждаемой картины до 1937 года - одно предложение в записной книжке Вертью, из которого никак не следует, что он видел именно ту картину, о которой идёт речь, и затем сразу аукцион Кристи, на котором она якобы была продана.

Тут Вы, конечно, возмутитесь и скажете «как это сразу, если между ними целый абзац со списком владельцев?!», но обратите внимание на то, как именно он подан, а также в каком месте и по какому поводу автором статьи дана ссылка под №2 и, надеюсь, Вам всё станет ясно.