Antwerp restores famous resident's self-portrait

ANTWERP — Maybe he should have stuck with dogs.

That's a point art historians can debate now that a painting by the town's most famous former resident has been restored.

Cassius Marcellus Coolidge's strangely lopsided self-portrait now hangs prominently in the Antwerp town hall, a fitting tribute to the humble origins and eccentricity of the Renaissance man best known for his paintings of dogs playing poker.

Mr. Coolidge, born in 1844 on a farm in the neighboring town of Philadelphia, once filled the village of Antwerp with creative and business ventures, including its first bank and newspaper. As a young man, he painted the village's street signs and developed a show as a "lightning cartoonist." He also created the props he called "comic foregrounds," which still allow modern fair patrons to put their heads through a hole and be photographed as anything from a fat man in a bathing suit to their favorite livestock.

Mr. Coolidge's most successful venture, though, was his series of paintings of dogs engaged in human activities — playing baseball, holding court, or, most notably, playing cards. The images were popularized in the early 1900s by the St. Paul calendar company Brown & Bigelow.

The more obscure self-portrait depicts Mr. Coolidge in one of his many entrepreneurial roles, as the founder of the Bank of Antwerp in 1872. Dated 1888, it shows the founder sporting a bowler hat and generous mustache — and noticeably uneven ears.

The restoration work cost about $2,500. West Lake Conservators, Mottville, cleaned surface grime that had obscured the image, restored areas where paint had flaked away and applied a surface coating to prevent light damage. The firm also stabilized the painting by adding a hard, protective backing.

"It was very flimsy," town Supervisor John R. Shaw said. "It was just paper; it had holes in it. They fixed that."

Mr. Shaw said a West Lake employee told him the work was likely worth a few thousand dollars, perhaps as much as $10,000.

That's nowhere near the sums brought in by the 2004 sale at the New York City auction house Doyle New York of two of Mr. Coolidge's most famous paintings. For "A Bold Bluff" and "Waterloo," which both show canine poker games, a private, anonymous buyer paid $590,000, according to a December 2005 New York Times article.

Mr. Coolidge's self-portrait, however, is valuable primarily as a historical artifact of the town of Antwerp, Mr. Shaw said.

Calls to several upstate New York art museums seeking comment on Mr. Coolidge and his work garnered no comments from curators. However, one public relations officer acknowledged having a copy of either a Coolidge work or a knockoff showing dogs playing poker in his basement.

Despite the self-portrait's 1888 date, Antwerp Town Historian Nancy E. Raymon said, her conversations with Mr. Coolidge's daughter, the late G. Marcella Coolidge, convinced her the painting was commissioned by the bank sometime between 1910 and 1916.

The self-portrait once hung in the now-defunct Bank of Antwerp, but in recent years had languished in the town's library. It was damaged by moisture when it was stored in the attic and by accident or vandalism when it was displayed, and town officials paid it little mind until a local man turned up at a Town Council meeting several months ago asking to buy it, Mr. Shaw said.

"He offered us $500 for it," he said. "That's what piqued our interest."