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For a few months in 1796, a young woman of humble origins held the British art establishment in the palm of her hand. Ann Jemima Provis's mother died when she was three, and her father, Thomas Provis, was a "sweeper of the court" at the Chapel Royal at St. James's Palace. Though his daughter was passionate about drawing and painting, Provis encouraged her to take up needlework, one of the few ways women could make a living. But eventually he assented to her wish to be an artist, even offering her a manuscript describing the elusive painting techniques used by Old Masters that his grandfather, who once captained an East India Company ship, had picked up somewhere in Italy. Ann Jemima devoted herself to studying and refining the techniques detailed in the manuscript; her obsession was such that she was treated for "mental derangement" by two well-known London doctors. But her industry paid off. She became a gifted miniaturist, and her work was exhibited at the Royal Academy.

This, at least, is the story Thomas Provis probably fed Richard Cosway, a flamboyant portrait painter, when he tried to sell him on the idea of a manuscript holding secrets long considered lost — every last one of them completely bogus. If Cosway smelled a rat, he didn't let on, instead suggesting Provis take it to Benjamin West, then the president of the Royal Academy of the Arts. Provis approached West. The original manuscript, he told him, had been destroyed in a house fire, but fortunately Provis was perspicacious enough to have made a copy. Would West like to see it?

West proved an easy mark. Born in Pennsylvania in 1738, he had worked hard to overcome his foreign roots to gain stature as a gentleman and a well-respected painter in London. He was one of the first American artists to embark on the Grand Tour, traveling throughout Europe to study the great masterpieces, and he lingered in Italy, determined to work out the methods used by his Renaissance heroes, particularly Titian. Though he thought he came close once or twice, West never quite cracked the method behind Titian's "divine" color. He moved to London and established himself in King George's court, and eventually was named Joshua Reynolds's successor as president of the Academy in 1792. Reynolds, like West and so many others, was obsessed with deciphering the Old Masters' formulas, and allegedly bought a painting by Titian in order to strip it slowly, layer by layer, to determine its makeup. Should West succeed where Reynolds had failed, his reputation was ensured. West eagerly accepted the invitation to try out the Venetian formula at the Provises' home, under the guidance of Ann Jemima.

But the initial attempt to use the technique, in late 1795, was not a success. After West suggested the ground on the canvas seemed not quite right, the Provises readily agreed, and offered to prepare another. West tried again, several months later, this time with more promising results. He showed this painting to a colleague, declaring, "a new Epocha in the art...would be formed by the discovery." He painted portraits of his two sons and chose subjects for two larger canvases, Cupid Stung by a Bee and Cicero Discovering the Tomb of Archimedes.

But Provis, who had expected to be paid for his assistance, was less pleased with West's apparent triumph. He took his grievance to Joseph Farington, another Academy member, who formed a small faction of artist friends outraged by West's possessiveness. West backpedaled. He'd always planned on reporting Provis's discovery, he explained, and on compensating him appropriately for it. He suggested that they all share the manuscript by forming a syndicate. Each member would contribute 10 guineas with the idea that the total sum eventually paid to Provis would be no more than 600 guineas (roughly the price of a prize-winning racehorse). The agreement was that Ann Jemima would teach them the technique, and until that amount was reached, they would keep it to themselves.