OMGoodness! Serendipitous Discovery

[snarlingcoyote]

My great aunt passed a while back at 102, and DH and I were lured to her home with the promise of a dining room table (that wasn't as advertised) when her home was being cleared out. I picked up a few sentimental items as well.

One of the things I picked up was a small pen and ink picture, done in an asian style, that had the date 1938 and a woman's name. The last name is a family from our family's community so I thought I'd see if I could trace the woman and maybe give the picture to her descendants.

Well I haven't been able to find this person on Ancestry. My DM has asked around and no luck (there's a story there, I'm sure) , but it's a charming little picture, so I put it by my computer desk and decided I would hang it up somewhere.

Well, I came into the computer room on Saturday and the photo was lying face down on the window seat. It's a small picture, 5x7ish, and it had 8 itsy teensy nails holding the backing in. All but 2 of the itsy teensy nails were missing, I checked the floor and the carpet and all over, but still haven't found the nails (I'm sure I'll find them with my feet at some point.) Anywho, I decided, since the picture was now loose in the frame that I would take a peek behind the picture for two reasons - to see what was used to build up the picture in the frame and to see what the picture looked like when it wasn't under glass. (You hear all the time about pictures and wedding certificates and things like that being discovered in backings!)

Well. Of all things. The extra paper between the picture and the cardboard backing? It was a colored Godey's Lady Book print from 1845! The colors are still bright and lovely! I've always wanted one of those, but just never had the time to run one down off of EBay, and this one is charming.

Not sure if this is really budgety, but I guess it is - I now have two really lovely pictures for free, one of which does have real monetary as opposed to sentimental value - anyway, I thought I'd share my discovery!

 

[Zhoen]

This would have been a better story if it happened 12 days ago, for Halloween. Because your picture is TOTALLY haunted, that's why it fell and all the nails came out. Now, the REAL question... is it the great Aunt, the artist, or someone else, who has been waiting all these years to get their beloved Lady print back out into the sunlight ever since someone covered it up! Happy belated Halloween, and congrats on the find.

 

[snarlingcoyote]

This would have been a better story if it happened 12 days ago, for Halloween. Because your picture is TOTALLY haunted, that's why it fell and all the nails came out. Now, the REAL question... is it the great Aunt, the artist, or someone else, who has been waiting all these years to get their beloved Lady print back out into the sunlight ever since someone covered it up! Happy belated Halloween, and congrats on the find.

LOL! I really think it's more that the picture fell over and the nails fell out. It's been in the frame, what, 70 years? But it was a bit spooky, the picture was just sitting on the window seat like "hey! Over here! Take my back off!"

I'll guess the artist, since I can't find anything about her and that's really odd, since I should be able to, and my mom definitely should be able to find out something about her as well, LOL! My great aunt probably never even knew there was a print in the frame. I don't think they particularly valued those sort of prints in 1938.

In 1938, hmm. My great aunt was either the general manager for a department store or recently married. I'll have to go look up which. Maybe this was a wedding present?