The Painting

Jack and Joanne return from their wedding and mission trip to the Philippines to open the newly named J&J Antique Gallery. Whit has sent them a remarkable gift from the Universal Press Foundation: crates filled with artwork, antiques, books, and artifacts that have spent years in storage. Connie becomes their temporary assistant and helps catalog the enormous collection.

Among a group of mostly inexpensive prints, Jack notices an unsigned oil painting of women gathering crops. The colors and brushwork remind him of the missing masterwork Gleaning at Twilight by Henri Lowe. A closer examination suggests that someone has painted over the lower corner where Lowe normally placed his signature.

Professor James Champlin from Campbell County College carefully removes the later layer of paint and uncovers the signature. He confirms that the painting is genuine and could make the gallery famous. Jack and Joanne refuse to announce the discovery, however, until they identify the donor. Someone who believed the picture worthless may deserve the chance to reclaim it.

Universal Press records show that the paintings were anonymously donated by G. Winston Smith, one of the nation’s wealthiest men and the founder of the large charitable organization Hand to Hand. Jack and Joanne are puzzled that a famous philanthropist donated the picture instead of selling it to fund his own charity, but they contact him and explain its value.

Smith claims that his grandfather bought the painting at a flea market around the beginning of the century and passed it down through the family. Although he admits that he did not know its value, he tells the Allens to keep it on the condition that neither his name nor Hand to Hand receives publicity. His eagerness to surrender a valuable family heirloom makes Jack suspicious.

Until the gallery has a proper security system, Connie carries the crated painting to the safe at Whit’s End. A child startles her, and she drops it. The painting is unharmed, but the damaged frame exposes a handwritten French inscription on the back. Dated 1935, it dedicates the work from H.A. to M.A. with enduring love.

The International Art Registry reports that Hannah Dreyfus had bought Gleaning at Twilight in 1935 as a wedding gift for her husband, Myer Abbott. The inscription proves that this is the same picture. Smith’s grandfather therefore could not have purchased it decades earlier as he claimed.

Jack and Joanne travel to confront Smith in person. He angrily accuses them of trying to ruin his father’s reputation and orders them out. Before leaving, the Allens bring Rabbi Myer Abbott into the room. Faced with the painting’s original owner, Smith finally tells the truth.

Smith’s family name had once been Schmidt. His father had served in the German army during the Second World War and was transferred to occupied Paris, where he cataloged valuables stolen from Jewish families. He secretly took gold, jewelry, and Gleaning at Twilight for himself. Near the war’s end, he deserted, used the gold to reach America, changed his name, and sold the jewelry to start the business from which his family’s fortune eventually grew.

Only when his father was dying had Smith learned this history. His father asked him to find the rightful owner and return the painting. Smith tried, but fear for his reputation and Hand to Hand overcame him. Rather than obey the request openly, he hid the masterpiece among nearly worthless paintings and donated them all to Universal Press.

Smith fears that no one will support a charity whose beginnings are connected to property stolen from Jewish families. Rabbi Abbott responds that he will. The Allens have restored Hannah’s gift to him, and his faith teaches the importance of receiving God’s forgiveness and extending forgiveness to others. Smith apologizes for his father’s actions and for his own attempt to conceal them, while the rabbi blesses the good work Hand to Hand now performs.

Rabbi Abbott permanently loans Gleaning at Twilight to the J&J Antique Gallery, where it becomes the center of a Hall of Freedom exhibit. Smith also funds an annual Hannah Abbott Art Scholarship for a student whose work celebrates freedom. The recovered painting now preserves both the damage caused by prejudice and the healing made possible through truth, love, justice, and forgiveness.