Norman Rockwell's "Breaking Home Ties" Finds a New Home

The new owners of the Norman Rockwell painting "Breaking Home Ties" paid $15.4 million to take it home.

The artist sold the painting to his Vermont neighbor, cartoonist Donald Trachte in 1960. Mr. Trache made a copy of the painting and hid the original in behind a fake wall in his home. After his death, his sons noticed a strange gap in one of the walls of their father's home. When they pushed against it, the wall slid open to reveal the Rockwell and other paintings.

Mr. Trachte had never told anyone about the fake painting that was displayed as the original in his home, even after several experts pointed out inconsistencies between the reproduction of the painting on the front of "The Saturday Evening Post" in 1954 and the assumed original in Mr. Trachte's possession. The differences were blamed on poor preservation and sloppy restoration until the dicovery of the original solved the mystery.

Mr. Trachte divorced his wife and mother of his children in the early 1970's, and his sons conjecture that he may have been trying to keep his wife from claiming the painting in the divorce, thereby saving them for his children.

Even in 1970, the painting would have brought enough to make both wealthy. How stingy!

JWil Books