Quincy Best-selling author and historian Robert Turek has unearthed a finding that could have a significant impact on the art world and beyond, following years of thorough investigation into the life and works of the enigmatic early American painter John Quidor.
Turek has discovered and purchased an original oil painting by Quidor called The Water Sprite. This is one of the artist’s less than 40 surviving pieces, many of which are kept in prestigious museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. His haunting and poignant retellings of American legend, such as Ichabod Crane Pursued by the Headless Horseman, are what Quidor is most known for.
Turek purchased this freshly discovered piece after it had been in a private New England collection, then passed down through the family of the first governor of Maine’s great-great-grandson, and finally to a professor and art collector in Boston. Surprisingly, the art has never been shown in public before. Turek’s perseverance and academic acumen have now brought this unique gem back into the spotlight.
Turek stated in a news release that the Water Sprite is more than just a painting; it represents a fragment of forgotten American history. Reuniting Quidor’s work with the place he once called home is a professional and personal victory I could only have imagined at the start of this journey.
There is still ambiguity about Quidor’s brief stay in Quincy in the 1830s. The revealing of this long-lost picture is a significant cultural homecoming, and the timing of this discovery is particularly poignant as Adams County celebrates its bicentennial.
On July 25, the painting was made public via Qcy From Above, a well-liked Facebook page that Turek created to showcase Quincy’s rich past via photos, discoveries, and original research. Additionally, the Historical Society is working to put The Water Sprite on display at the John Wood Mansion, giving the locals a unique chance to see Quidor’s eerily exquisite brushwork up close.
Best-selling author, historian, and Quincy native Robert Turek is committed to sharing and conserving lost tales of America’s past. The most thorough analysis of the mysterious artist ever written is found in his upcoming book, The Mysterious John Quidor, which aims to give Quidor’s genius the credit it so well deserves.
