Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

Every once in awhile when I'm walking my dog, Una, before the trash collectors make their rounds, I find something beside the curb that is too good to resist. I had one such day last week.

"I rescued a painting," I told The Gryphon via IM. He seemed boggled, so I explained. "Someone had thrown it out, but it's an original and quite good."

The oil painting is of Lake Geneva, Switzerland, and the artist, Mary P. Tinsley, signed it at the bottom right.

The painting, mostly likely, was done from a photograph, although Mary Tinsley captured the quality of light quite well in the sky, as well as did a nice job with the reflections in the lake.

Why am I guessing the painting was done from a photograph? Even when the painting was done, in 1982, according to the dedication on the back, it would have been cumbersome to travel back to the states with an oil painting. Then again, perhaps I'm wrong and Mary Tinsley spent summers in Europe, painting at her leisure, with plenty of time for works to dry before carting them, or shipping them, home.

The dedication on the back fascinates me, because it deepens the mystery. Mary painted the work on July 30, 1982 and donated it to Calvert Manor Nursing Home in memory of Annie Belle P. Tinsley.

Who is Annie Belle? Mary's mother? Her sister? Her mother-in-law? And why donate this painting of Geneva to the nursing home?

Was Geneva special to Annie Belle? Had she, for instance, met her husband there? Or raved about leisurely days of youth, spent strolling along the lake in that foreign, beautiful land?

Did Geneva, to Mary, represent the peace she hoped Annie Belle had found? Or was this simply the best painting she had done? Or even, the one she was most willing to part with?

The only other information on the back is not much help. From it, we learn Mary's place of residence, Newark, Delaware, the subject matter, Lake Geneva, and the medium, oil.

A check on the Internet tells us nothing about the Tinsleys but does reveal that the nursing home is in Rising Sun, Maryland. So how, exactly, did this painting by a Delaware woman, dedicated to a Maryland nursing home, end up next to a trash bin in suburban Philadelphia, 22 years later?

I suppose there are multiple explanations. A check of the phone book shows there are several Tinsleys in suburban Philadelphia, but none of them along the street where the painting was found. So presumably, the painting did not stay in the family.

Intriguingly, the back of the painting shows that it hung in a frame for a long enough time for the backing not covered by the frame to yellow. One assumes it was displayed, somewhere, if not in the nursing home.

Perhaps the nursing home, after displaying the painting for a given number of years, had gone through a remodeling, the painting sold along with other outdated furnishings. Or perhaps the painting had collected dust in a closet in the nursing home until an employee took it home. And now that original rescuer has tired of the painting, or they gave it away to someone who decided, after many years, to dispose of it?

Perhaps it hung on the bedroom wall of a recently divorced couple, and whoever is keeping the house has decided to start anew?

Perhaps they simply wanted the frame for something another painting. There's no way to know.

But the painting, having passed through at least a couple hands already, now leans against my dresser, waiting for me to find a frame and hang it on my wall, where I can ponder its many mysteries.

Copyright 2005 by Alyce Wilson

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