Discovering A Lost Painting

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Dwinal Pride, owner of a horse stable in Westbrook Maine, sometime in the 1850’s bought a large European painting at auction on the Eastern Promenade in Portland Maine. He brought his painting home from Portland and stored it in his attic. I’m presuming he never hung it because the painting was rolled up when my dad inherited it from his grandfather Walter Pride, he was the son of Dwinal Pride. Dad stored the rolled up painting in one of our attics filled with old furniture. I was aware of the painting because I had seen it when my dad Warren Pride brought it home. As kids we played in the attic climbing through and over the furniture. I remember stepping on the rolled up painting as we explored the attic. The canvas side faced outward and sat in that attic for several years. 

One day my dad retrieved the painting from its attic. Brought it to his wood shop and glued it down using contact cement. As a carpenter he achieved excellent adhesion with a smooth flat surface. He glued it to a ¼ inch pine sheet. I remember the day he glued it. I remember the smell of the contact cement. Several days later he trimmed the edges with his skull saw because the painting in its rolled up form had ragged edges. After he squared the edges of the painting. He built a wooden frame and painted the frame with dab painting using gray and white paint. I was present for both the gluing and trimming. I did not see him build the frame or paint it. He wanted to frame it to protect it and allow it to be hung up.

While the painting was still in his workshop my dad thought he would try to clean it because he thought it was dark. He took a rag from his paint collection, soaked it in Thinx cleaner, rubbed it on a dark section of the painting on the lower left side. Within seconds he could see it was removing underlying paint. 

I had many conversations with my dad about the painting and his thoughts about who had painted it and what it might be worth. He hung the painting in his and my mom’s bedroom. Mother hated the painting. It did not go with her sense of decorating. Our house was elegantly appointed, the painting represented a gash in the aesthetics of the whole house. 

My dad was not a talker, he and I though had many conversations about the painting. He felt it had to be worth at least a million dollars. One day in the early 60’s he had bought a blue and white ford station wagon and decided to take the painting to Boston and the Museum of Fine Arts to get a professional opinion about the painting. He didn’t have an appointment we just put the painting into the car and left. 

In the early 90’s I traveled to South Africa with a dozen jewelers to visit the country. We saw our primary diamond cutter. We visited diamond mines and a platinum mine. As we were traveling around the country we stopped in the city of Kimberly, where they had the abandoned Kimberly diamond mine. 

I took a walk one afternoon and came upon an art museum on the outskirts of town. I was surprised that they had an entire room of Claude Lorraine paintings. I recognized them immediately for the layout of the scene, the light, the clouds, the trees, the temples. Claude’s work was recognized without reading the wall tags. I was surprised that this remote museum had so many Claude Lorraine paintings. I recognized them immediately because I had grown up with a Claude Lorraine in our house in Gorham Maine.

I’ve had similar reactions to seeing Claude’s work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the Louvre Museum. It’s like seeing your mom or dad if they had an identical twin that you never knew about. One would immediately recognize the similarities.