Dewitt Clinton Boutelle

(1820-1884)

Many writers use the term “Golden Age,” and readers seem to know what it means. The Golden Age for art buying has a unique meaning for me. It was when even the biggest galleries had their inventories listed on Rolodex cards… prior to the computer. Kennedy’s was such a gallery, and a sympathetic relationship with an employee enabled me to comb the Rolodex looking for opportunities. It was like finding the cookie jar: the inventory was so vast that there were pieces that hadn’t seen a wall hook or been repriced in years. Kennedy regularly produced a small catalogue called The Kennedy Quarterly in which small black-and-white images of paintings were crammed together, three or four to a page, with no distinction between major and unknown names. One particular catalogue from August 1965 had 147 paintings illustrated on 63 pages that also included text. There was J. Du Harve next to Sanford Gifford and J. Heyle Raser next to John F. Kensett. I never heard of Du Harve or Raser… then or now. Anyway, in 1974 I discovered a wonderful piece by Dewitt Clinton Boutelle entitled Grist Mill, 1871. This piece had appeared in the 1965 Quarterly and had been gathering dust, untouched and un-repriced, for the previous nine years. It was mine for $850. Yes, it was the “Golden Age.”