GDG- Cyclorama Painting

[Christ Liebegott]

The following is from the Associated Press as printed in the Centre Daily
Times (State College, PA) on May 3, 2007.


 


6-ton Gettysburg painting may fetch $10 million


3 N.C. businessmen buy work, plan resale


By Martha Waggoner - The Associated Press


RALEIGH, N.C. -- A towering 6-ton painting depicting the Battle of
Gettysburg was sold recently in North Carolina after decades in storage, and
it could resell quickly for more than $10 million, according to the agent
handling the transaction.

The cyclorama, which is 76 feet longer than a football field, is meant to be
displayed in a round room to give viewers the feeling they are at the
battle. The painting depicts the bloodiest assault of the Civil War for both
the Union and the Confederacy.

"When I saw it, I just about died. I was almost enraptured into it," said
Larry D. Laster, a Winston-Salem fine arts dealer. "Everyone who has seen it
has said the same thing, that you're dragged into the painting. And that's
while it's lying on the ground."

Winston-Salem artist Joe King spent 30 years searching for the cyclorama,
which he found in 1965, behind the wall of a burned-out Chicago warehouse.
King was unable to find a home for the massive painting and willed it to
Wake Forest University when he died in 1996.

Laster said the painting was recently sold to three businessmen from central
North Carolina, but he declined to name them or disclose how much they paid.
Laster, who acted as the buyers' broker, said he expected the cyclorama to
resell in the eight-figure range -- meaning $10 million or more.

The businessmen prefer to sell to an institution with the ability to
publicly display the painting -- which measures 376 feet long and about 22
feet high -- but they are considering other offers, Laster said.

"We already have a few people interested," he said. "I feel quite confident
that it will sell again very quickly."

Laster expects it to resell within six months despite the covenants that
come along with the purchase, including that it be conserved as a single
work and not broken into separate paintings.

The cyclorama is one of four created by French military artist Philippe
Philippoteaux and a team of artists in the 1880s. Two are thought to be
lost, and the fourth has been on display at Gettysburg National Military
Park but is being restored.

The painting recently sold in North Carolina, titled "The Battle of
Gettysburg," is considered by art experts to be one of the most unusual
pieces of American art in history. It depicts the battle of Gettysburg on
July 3, 1863, the day of Pickett's Charge.

The work was originally displayed in Chicago in 1883. It was last displayed
in public in 1933, at the Century of Progress International Exposition in
Chicago.

After he bought the painting, King had the 14 rolls on which it had been
stored unrolled on the Bowman Gray football field. The goal posts had to be
removed because the painting was 76 feet longer than the field.