In 1973, cartoonist Don Trachte Sr. built a double wall behind a sliding bookcase in his Vermont art studio. His goal was simple: keep Norman Rockwell Breaking Home Ties out of his divorce settlement. To make sure nobody missed the missing canvas, Trachte painted a replica by hand, hung it in his home, and slid the $15 million original into the dark behind wood paneling.
For 33 years, the swap went unnoticed. Millions of museum visitors, art historians, and curators walked past Trachte's fake at the Norman Rockwell Museum without suspecting a thing. In 2003, illustrator Don Walden spotted faint color differences on the boy's jacket and face, but experts assumed Rockwell had simply retouched his own work decades earlier.
Trachte died in 2005 without telling a soul. Nine months later, his sons noticed the studio's interior wall was eight inches shorter than the building's outer wall. Pushing against the pine bookcase paneling, they triggered a hidden latch that swung open a double wall compartment.
Inside lay eight original paintings wrapped in plastic, with the authentic 1954 Rockwell sitting right in the center, its rich oil glazes completely intact. In November 2006, the recovered masterpiece went to auction at Sotheby's and sold for a record-breaking $15.4 million.
If you love narrative mid-century art, explore our curated realism art prints, canvas art, or framed art prints and wall art to bring classic storytelling to your space.
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