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It was 1962
when I came in contact with an old gentleman from back east who had
some art for sale. I went to his residence in Albuquerque, New
Mexico and bought fifteen old paintings. These paintings, some
framed and some unframed canvasses, were of European and English
origin. They were in various states of repair and condition. The old
man was about eighty years old, quite feeble but of very noble and
gentlemanly disposition. He said he had collected art for most of
his adult life. He gave me no hint that any of the paintings he sold
me were of any great value. He said he was going to build a house to
show his art, however his family had all disappeared and he was too
old to do anything but liquidate his collection. He said he had many
more paintings and art stored that he would show me in a couple of
weeks. When I did go back in two weeks I found that he had died and
no one knew anything about him or his art collection.
The only information I was given as to the origin of the paintings
was that he had purchased numerous paintings from the son of a
retired Army officer that had been stationed in Europe in the later
part of the 1800's. The officer had bought quite a lot of art while
stationed there.
From these paintings came a painting, 45x55.5 cm. in size, of a
lady, resembling Camille, sitting, sewing or embroidering, in a
white dress and a vase of flowers by a window. It is an
impressionist work of art with a signature in the upper right hand
corner insinuating "Claude Monet 71".
It is our hope that the following pages will provoke the reader as
to this discovered masterpiece by one of the world's best-loved
artists of the past centuries, Claude Monet.
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