With all the great information that has been posted to our blog. I figured I will lighten it up a bit with a few jokes and funny stories from time to time. Here is a classic and also a late great find for the sons.
The story is priceless. From today's New York TImes:
Everyone thought the conservator did it. But as it turns out, it was the husband, in the throes of a bitter divorce.
For serveral years, museum curators and American paointing experts had been troubled by discrepancies between Norman Rockweell's 1954 canvas "Breaking Home Ties" and tear sheets of the legendary Saturday Evening Post cover for which he painted it.
Comparing the two, experts mused that the painting's colors seemed oddly washed out. They conjectured that a zealous conservator had overcleaned the work ...
Orginal "Breaking Home TIes," left, and the copy at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass.
The painting's provenance was undisputed: Don Trachte, known as the cartoonist who took over the Sunday edition of the comic strip "Henry" in the 1940's, bought the painitng from Rockwell for $900 in 1960. It became his prized possession. So prized, it seems, that when Mr. Trachte and his wife, Elizabeth, jointly filed for divorce more than a decade later, the cartoonist cooked up a ruse, presumably to ensure keeping the treasure himself, hiding the orginal in a secret niche behind a wall in his house in Sandgate, Vt.
What he and his wife subsequently divvied up -- the Rockwell and seven other paintings by other local artists -- were therfore copies, presumably made, their children say, by Mr. Trachte himself.
Last month -- more than three decades after the divorce, and nearly a year after Mr. Trachte's death -- his son Dave, 54, noticed a strange gap in a wood-paneled wall in his father's house. When he and his brother Don Jr. , 59, gave it a shove, the wall suddenly slid open, revealing the Rockwell and other canvases hanging on a wall in the hidden compartment.
"Every divorce is always a little messy." conceded Don Jr. in an interview ...
Mr. Trachte's ex-wife, Elizabeth Markey, now 98, is apparently unfaxed. When her eldest son gave her the news, he said, her response was a wry, "Doesn't surprise me."
Great blog, very interesting story...I enjoyed reading it.
Posted by: Nancy Kapchan | April 12, 2006 at 07:14 AM
Glad you enjoyed the story. I can't believe that he actually created the reproductions himself. And I wonder what recall the buyers have now that they realize they did not buy originals.
Posted by: PSC | April 12, 2006 at 10:25 AM