You never know what you might turn up in New York City's trash. On a wintry day in February, when John W. Nichols discovered a discarded painting sticking out of a pile of trash bags in front of 55 East 65th Street, a few doors from his office, his thoughts ran immediately to its potential value, either in the market or to a museum. So far, all the painting has provided is a bit of an education about the art world.
The canvas was a large portrait of a distinguished gentleman. "Sadly, he had seen better times," said Mr. Nichols, who is the director of museum services for the American Federation of the Arts, a nonprofit group that organizes art exhibitions. The painting was worn, had three punctures and was loose on its stretcher.
Still, handwriting in ink on the back revealed that the sitter was Andrew Foster Esq., painted in 1848 by the New York studio of Samuel Lovett Waldo and William Jewett. Recognizing the power of the painting and the importance of the identifying marks, Mr. Nichols rescued it.
Mr. Nichols -- an administrator, not an art historian -- soon found his hopes for the new-found treasure soaring. A little research showed that Foster was one of the city's wealthiest citizens of his day. And no less than the Metropolitan Museum of Art was the owner of eight Waldo and Jewett portraits.
Indeed, Waldo and Jewett were "very well-known portraitists through the 1840's," said Marcia Goldberg, an affiliate scholar at Oberlin College who is writing a manuscript on the duo. Ms. Goldberg, who has catalogued more than 700 Waldo and Jewett paintings, said they can be found in many museums, including the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the New-York Historical Society and the Newark Museum.
Waldo, Ms. Goldberg added, usually painted the subject's head and hands, while Jewett did the costumes and the backgrounds.
Mr. Nichols, who said he lacked the money to spend on restoring the painting, never wanted to be more than a foster parent to the Foster painting. His visions of a cash windfall soon disappeared, however. Not a single art gallery or auction house among the dozen he approached was interested in selling the painting for him.
"Nineteenth-century portraiture does not have a strong market," explained Peter Rathbone, the American art expert at Sotheby's. "People are not as interested in acquiring other people's ancestors as they were in the 1920's."
Then there is the gender problem. "If it were a beautiful young lady in a fancy gown, it might do well," Mr. Rathbone said. "But a man, if he's not particularly attractive or if he's wearing dark clothing, no."
Mr. Rathbone said that the record price at auction for a Waldo -- $33,000 -- was set in 1978. It was a portrait of Andrew Jackson. But in today's market, "society portraits of the 19th century tend to bring in the $2,000 to $4,000 range," he said.
A wiser Mr. Nichols then tried to donate the painting to a museum. But that, too, has proved difficult. The Met, his first choice, wrote that the portrait "appears distinguished," but declined his donation because it already owns enough Waldo and Jewetts.
He wrote the Brooklyn Museum, but has not heard back. He got in touch with other likely candidates and posted a message on the Internet. Some curators learned of the painting on the gossip grapevine and called him. But those interested, who Mr. Nichols said include the Museum of the City of New York and the Jersey City Museum, cannot afford the $3,000 or so cost of restoration.
"It's one of the more beautiful Waldo and Jewett paintings," said Barbara Ball Buff, curatorial coordinator for the painting and sculpture department of the Museum of the City of New York. "Sadly, we can't take anything in that condition." She added, "Fixed up, it'll be a real knockout painting."
That deadlock is where matters stood until two weeks ago, when Ms. Goldberg discovered more information about Foster that may make the painting more valuable than the average picture of an old white male.
Foster was no Andrew Jackson. But he was someone to be reckoned with. He grew prosperous as an auctioneer who also engaged in the coffee trade with Brazil, Ms. Goldberg said, and was listed in "The Rich Men of 1822" and "Wealthy Citizens of New York City, 1845."
More important to his portrait's survival, he was a great-grandfather of Henry Francis duPont, the founder of the Winterthur Museum in Delaware, one of the country's best repositories of decorative arts from the 17th through 19th centuries. The Frick Art Reference Library has a photograph of an earlier portrait of Andrew Foster owned by Winterthur. A descendant, Louisa duPont, married Frank B. Crowninshield, a businessman.
"What puzzles me," Ms. Goldberg said, "is why someone threw the painting away. Sometimes, as a painting passes through generations, they don't always keep the connections. I guess they decided they didn't need great-great-great-grandfather anymore."
Last week, as soon as Mr. Nichols learned of Foster's blueblood connection from Ms. Goldberg, he dashed off a letter to Winterthur, which called him immediately. Sometime soon, Winterthur experts will inspect the orphaned portrait.
"It's exciting that somehow this portrait found its way into the trash in front of the federation," said E. MacSherry Fowble, Winterthur's director of museum collections. "If it proves to be what John thinks it is, it'll be very exciting."