Found by a Friend

When my grandmother sold the family farm back in the late 1960s, there was the usual estate sale. At the time I was still in college. My parents kept a number of things in the basement of our family home but years later when Dad moved into an apartment, we had another sale.

Oh, don't you wish you could go back and pull a few things from the sale? My grandmother's enormous Hoosier cabinet on which I learned to bake; a beautiful dresser -- Eastlake style, but probably not original, nonetheless lovely; Grandpa's Mission rocker and coat rack and more.

Then there was the print "Found by a Friend," by August Friedrich Albrecht Schenck, a German painter (French and German by nationality) who lived 1828-1901.) You've seen it before -- a collie dog stands over a sheep laying in the snow and begins to howl, hopefully calling someone to rescue the sheep.  In my grandparents' home it hung in the living room near the rocker where my grandfather often sat. It was a print I had seen more recently on my friend Rita's beautiful Panoply blog when she showed items in her shop one day.

Schenck was best known for both landscapes and paintings of animals. He later became a knight of the Legion of Honour.

Source: Wikipedia

I loved this print. Probably I loved it most because during my youth, we had a collie, Major. All things "collie" were part of my life -- Albert Payson Terhune's "Lad" book series, included. "Lassie" -- Not so much. I would always cry when Lassie was in danger. Sometimes that separating reality from fiction is hard!

I was an only child. Major became my "brother," my best buddy. He was a herder and I was his sheep.

One time, during my naughty period, mom went to spank me. (And guess what, I turned out OK) Spankings were rare (and pretty tame) and I wasn't a happy camper. Major got his face right in there and made it clear to her that "harming" me was not permitted. She stopped before she'd even started. That lesson came in very handy! Don't get in trouble without Major being near!

 Major "arrived" on my fifth birthday. He was part of our family until fall of my senior year in high school. The day we said goodbye was indeed a sad one.

He loved going to the lake and when we bought our own cottage a half-mile from the one where my mother grew up and where we had gone for the first eight years of his life, he simply would walk back to Wah Wah Soo and sit in his hole outside the old bathroom window.

In fact, one time he chewed his way our of our brand new porch (my dad hadn't even seen it yet!) and while sitting on the beach at my cousin's, our sweet old dog came ambling down the beach!

Many of us remember this print, perhaps as I do, hanging in our grandparents' homes. As I looked into it, I learned there were two very similar prints -- this one, by Schenck called "Found by a Friend"...

Source: http://www.searlecanada.org/schenck/albertschenckdata08.html

 And a very similar one by an artist called William Hunt.

Source: http://www.searlecanada.org/schenck/albertschenckdata08.html

This link explains how if you look at them side by side you will see the differences. The Schenck is softer and the background is slightly different with the position of the birds. My grandparents had the Schenck version.

Well, in my post-Easter post I shared that antique dealer/blogger Rita had done a purge of some of her things, offering them to blogger friends. She would make a surprise box for us, based on things we may have mentioned when looking at her booth or passions she had seen on her blog. When my box arrived it was chocked full of goodies! Linens, a cheese board, towels, a wonderful fleur de ils cookie cutter, two tablecloths and a lovely white runner, the marmalade jar I've always wanted and more!

And one such goodie was the beloved "Found by a Friend."

This now hangs in my bedroom and I'm not letting it go! Even the frame looks similar to the one I remembered! I don't know that Grandma's print ever ended up in West Virginia but stranger things have happened! And that is exactly what I would like to believe.

But what I especially love is that "Found by a Friend" was indeed, found by a friend. And with it, came many fond memories.

I'll be sharing more of Rita's treasures in future posts (including some cookies from that gorgeous fleur de lis cutter and the recipe) but here's a big thank you to her! For more stories of people who delighted in Rita's purge visit her Panoply post here and check out her other posts, too!

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