Jacob Lawrence painting missing for 60 years rediscovered

A painting by American artist Jacob Lawrence that has not been seen in public for 60 years has been found and is taking its designated place in a 30-piece exhibit of Lawrence's work, officials at the Peabody Essex Museum in Massachusetts said Thursday.

The exhibit of the series “Struggle: From the History of the American People," completed in the mid-1950s by the Black painter, was organized by the Salem-based museum and is currently showing at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, with the missing piece — known as panel 16 — represented by an empty frame.

A sharp-eyed visitor to the Met had neighbors with a Lawrence painting in their collection and, suspecting it might be part of the series, encouraged the owners to contact the New York museum.

It was indeed a part of the series, and was added to the exhibit this week, according to The New York Times.

The owner of the long-lost panel lives on the Upper West Side in New York City, but their name is not being disclosed. It is being loaned to the exhibit. The painting had been purchased at a 1960 Christmas charity auction to benefit a music school, going for what the newspaper reported was “a very modest sum.”

“We are thrilled to learn of its discovery — one that came about thanks to close looking and careful observation by a museum visitor," Peabody Essex Museum Director and CEO Brian Kennedy said in a statement.

The vivid panel — titled by the artist “There are combustibles in every State, which a spark might set fire to —Washington, 26 December 1786” — depicts Shays' Rebellion, the 1786–87 tax revolt in western Massachusetts.

Two armies wielding muskets fixed with bayonets face off, with one of the bayonets piercing the flesh of a foe, causing a trickle of blood to splash to the...