Sometimes, when looking at an aged portrait one senses that the essence or spirit of the sitter is imbued in the canvas, captured for posterity, patiently waiting for those with an eye to see. This was certainly the case when I acquired the mysterious portrait of Lionel Ellis, painted by his friend and fellow artist Arnold Henry Mason in 1927. Keen to learn more about the person behind the enigmatic smile, I embarked on a journey of discovery which revealed a remarkable episode in local art history, an untold story of a prodigious talent.