Two new exhibitions at Waddesdon Manor highlight an artist’s skill and the potential of 3D technology, writes Sandra Carter.

Have you a Hodgkin at home? A hunt was launched for ‘lost’ artworks when Waddesdon Manor put together an exhibition of Eliot Hodgkin’s paintings - his first major exhibition since 1990.

It runs at Waddesdon Manor’s Stables gallery until October 20.

Why the appeal for hidden treasures? “It was Lord Rothschild’s idea to have an exhibition here at the Manor,” explained art historian Adrian Eeles at the launch on May 25.

“It has been a labour of love for Hodgkin’s family to bring together work loaned by private collections, museums and institutions from around the world for this unique occasion.” They have also been able to trace several undocumented works.

Lord Rothschild, who chairs the trust that runs Waddesdon Manor for the National Trust and lives nearby at Eythrope, has long been a fan of the little known artist and has several paintings in his private collection.

He was eager to make Eliot Hodgkin (1905-87) more well known by making the stable gallery available for the exhibition.

It brings together nearly 100 paintings and drawings showing how Hodgkin’s interests and talents progressed throughout his life.

Particularly striking are his paintings of WWII of ruined buildings with weeds and wildflowers growing through. Also on display are London landscapes.

Post-war Hodgkin concentrated on still life, developing an obsession with precise forms and unusual viewpoints sometimes with surrealist undertones.

These might be an arrangement of a quartered lemon, or a group of seven Brussels sprouts whose unfurling leaves are almost sculptural, or an old boot lying on a wartime mined beach, all portrayed with consummate skill.

The artist once said: “I try to look at quite simple things as though I was seeing them for the first time and as though no one had ever painted them before.”

A quite different exhibition has been launched in an upstairs room at Waddesdon Manor: Madame de Pompadour in the Frame.

It shows a facsimile of François Boucher’s famous portrait of Madame de Pompadour (1756), which was once in Baron Ferdinand Rothschild’s London home and now remains in Munich.

Visitors can see how Factum Foundation, specialists in high-resolution digital scanning technology, have married traditional conservation and restoration techniques with the most advanced 3D digital reproduction technology to create the amazingly effective facsimile, which hangs here in the Baron’s original frame.