The Vanishing Man: in pursuit of VelázquezLAURA CUMMINGTAblet bookshop price £17.10 • tel 01420 592974 Here is a story of quest and detection, and also the tale of two men’s lives, accidentally braided together across time and place. One is of course the artist Velázquez, many of whose paintings have vanished into the alembic of history, and the other is a Victorian bookseller and printer who conceived a passion for Velázquez’s work and gave up his life to pursue it, through one particular portrait.Something like this is also the case for the author. Laura Cumming was swept off her feet by an encounter with Las meninas: that picture where the artist confronts us from behind the canvas he is painting, the maidservants of the title orbiting the t