When a woman bought a painting that appeared to bear the signature (签名) of N. C. Wyeth at a store in 2017, she joked that the 4-dollar item might actually be a real work by the Maine painter. Her joke was no laughing matter, and the painting is now estimated to fetch as much as $250,000 at auction (拍卖会) in September.
According to experts at Bonhams Skinner auction house, the seller unknowingly bought the work at a Savers store in Manchester, New Hampshire, while searching for frames to reuse. At that time, the Wyeth painting had been put against a wall along with mostly damaged posters and prints.
The woman took the piece home, and then made a quick Internet search but could not find any information about the work. After hanging the painting in her bedroom for several years, she eventually stored it in her study.
She rediscovered the painting this past May while doing cleaning, and this time posted images of the work on an online page titled “Things Found in Walls”, which is devoted to “stories of things you have found in walls, dug up in your backyard, or in that spare house across the street from your grandma’s”, according to the group’s description.
Comments on the post led her to contact Lauren Lewis, a former curator who worked with paintings by three generations of the Wyeths: N. C. Wyeth, his son Andrew Wyeth and his grandson Jamie Wyeth. So she did.
“After seeing the piece in person, Lewis was 99% certain it was authentic instead of a copy,” she told The Boston Globe. “While it certainly had some small scratches (划痕), it was in remarkable condition considering none of us had any idea of its journey over the last 80 years.”
Wyeth often produced cover art for publishers of periodicals and novels. The painting up for sale in September is one of four he completed for a 1939 edition of Helen Hunt Jackson’s book Ramona, originally published in 1884. In it, Wyeth painted the young title character facing her elderly mother.
4. What was the woman’s joke?
A.The storekeeper was lazy and foolish. |
B.The painting she bought might be valuable. |
C.The signature of N. C. Wyeth was wrong. |
D.The Maine painter would appear at auction. |
5. How did the woman deal with the painting shortly after she got home?
A.She put it in her study. | B.She sold it to Lauren Lewis. |
C.She sent it to her friend. | D.She searched online about it. |
6. What does the underlined word “
authentic” in paragraph 6 mean?
A.Real. | B.Damaged. | C.Famous. | D.Stolen. |
7. What is the text mainly about?
A.A world-famous artist in the US. | B.A novel by Helen Hunt Jackson. |
C.A painting getting its recognition. | D.An expert going on a treasure hunt. |