A Work Of Art?

Memories of my grandparents' homes seem to come more often these days as I journey through my own grandparenthood. For my grandchildren, Grandpa and Grandma's farm is a once-in-a-while visiting spot but I was in and out of both of my grandparents' places often.

That's why I remember this print that hung in the living room of my Fish grandparents' home. It was not as vivid as this rendering, but faded and murky in an old-fashioned thin scrollwork frame. I didn't particularly care for it but when my mother was disposing of furnishings in their North Main Street foursquare, I claimed it, thinking it might be valuable.

But alas, as I learned on Wikipedia this week, "Daybreak" by Maxfield Parrish is considered the most popular art print of the 20th Century, based on the number of prints made - one for every four households!

But another art print in my grandfather's collection is the subject of this snippet from his Golly column.

He writes in 1968:

September Morn – It was a beautiful painting of a nude girl in the water up to her knees, about to take a dip in the chill morning air, and equally chilly water. The picture dates back to more than 50 years. We cannot recall the artist.

Way back in his bachelorhood days Golly purchased a copy and had it framed. We think of that picture on these September mornings when it is a big foggy, but –

That picture disappeared soon after Golly became a benedict. The frame was holding some other picture. We never asked what became of it – period.

Matinee de Septembre

 

From Wikipedia:

September Morn,, oil painting on canvas completed in 1911 by the French artist Paul Émile Chabas. Painted over several summers, it depicts a nude girl or young woman standing in the shallow water of a lake, prominently lit by the morning sun. The original hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

It seems my grandmother was not the only person who didn't appreciate this painting.

From a newspaper report in 1913

1914

This article from 1957 tells the story.