18 AUGUST 2001, Page 29

A talent exploded

From Dr W. Dun-ant Sir: I nearly cried when I read that the young man who painted the magnificent self-portrait you illustrate ('Self-Portrait' by Carel Fabritius; Books, 14 July), which I thought at first was a Rembrandt, was blown up with most of his works in the munitions explosion at Delft in 1654.

It shakes one's belief in a merciful God that this could happen tragically to Fabritius, and not joyfully to Tracey Emin or Damien Hirst.

Warren Durrant

Merseyside