Proctor church to auction painting
Similar work just sold for $100K
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Proctor Union Church will auction “Around the Ring of Roses” by Jessie Wilcox Smith in December. Photo Provided |
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By Brent Curtis Staff Writer - Published: June 27, 2009
PROCTOR — For the second time in less than three months, a Jessie Wilcox Smith painting from the town is headed for auction — but under different circumstances.
The first, "Curly Locks" sold in April for almost $100,000 but the sale was forfeited after it was discovered that the painting was taken from the town library and sold without permission by former town librarian Mary Brough.
The second painting was found thanks to a picture of "Curly Locks" that was printed in the newspaper in April.
"When I saw the picture of the other painting in the paper I noticed the frame. It's the same kind of odd design that's on our painting," Union Church Pastor Russ Gates said Thursday. "I do furniture repair and restoration so I probably pay more attention to the frame than the picture."
The church's painting is named "Around the Ring of Roses" which, like "Curly Locks," comes from a series of paintings Smith did in 1914 for a Mother Goose book. The six lads and lasses dancing on a daisy-covered hillside depict a nursery rhyme better known to modern audiences as "Ring Around the Rosy."
While there is no documentation of how "Around the Ring of Roses" arrived at the church, Gates said local lore dates the painting's arrival back to the late 1930s or early 1940s when Emily Dutton Proctor donated it to the church for "the enjoyment of the children."
For years, the painting hung in a downstairs dining room but was put into the closet before Gates arrived at the church three decades ago. Gates said he believes the church's painting is one of three that Proctor purchased from a Boston gallery many years ago. Another Smith painting was auctioned by the Proctor family.
Church officials have long known that the framed picture in their possession related to Smith's series, but they believed the colorful piece they had was a reprint, not the original.
After Gates uncovered the painting in a closet it called home for about 30 years, the church council had to make some tough decisions about what to do with it.
Keeping the valuable piece, which Gates said was appraised at roughly the same value as "Curly Locks," was a risky proposition, the council decided.
In a newsletter sent to the membership earlier this month, Gates wrote "The risk of theft and cost of insurance in a building that is open daily without hi-tech security made (keeping the painting) untenable."
Loaning the painting to a museum was briefly considered, but would have no benefit financially or aesthetically to the church, he said.
What the church will do with the money it receives from the auction — which will be conducted by Sotheby's Auction House in December — will be decided later by the church membership, Gates said.
brent.curtis@rutlandherald.com
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