The Winter Art Show

Almost nothing is known about this oddly solemn déjeuner sur I’herbe except that it must have been painted around 1870. It turned up in an estate in Florida, but the landscape and the tree draped in Spanish moss look more like what you might find in Georgia or South Carolina. The picnic hampers carried to the scene seem to have contained nothing but wine, yet the mood is scarcely one of revelry. Perhaps one of the gentlemen pictured is a winemaker assessing his vintage. In any case, we find the work intriguing, and we encourage readers who can shed light on its mystery to write and let us know.