Art restorer saves a mystery in Warren

A professional art restorer this week completed work on a long-lost painting found during recent renovations at the Historic Warren Armory.

Johan Bjurman, who lives in Florida but has a home on Prudence Island, was contracted to help restore a painting of a Native American chief, and was also asked to reproduce another believed lost over the years. The intact painting was found last autumn when workers restoring the old building’s interior peeled away a section of tin wall to the left of the Armory’s main stage. The second one reproduced by Mr. Bjurman was thought to once be at stage right. But the wall there was in poor condition and shows evidence of a fire at some point; the painting there was not found.

The Armory’s Ed Theberge said Mr. Bjurman helped stabilize the painting at stage left and based the new painting on it. Though there is no concrete information on who is represented in the surviving painting, Mr. Theberge said it was likely painted some time between 1874, when the stage was built, and 1888. In the Spring of that year, notations in an Armory ledger detail painting and fresco work in the building.

“The truth is we don’t know exactly” when the paintings were made, he said.

The stage left painting is about three foot square, and it is obvious that workers sought to protect it when they installed tin sheeting over it at some point in the past. While thin wood strapping is nailed in all around it, there is none on the face.

“They were very careful,” Mr. Theberge said.

One big question remains: Who is portrayed in the painting? Guesses from Mr. Theberge and others include King Philip or others, but there is no definitive proof.

“We really don’t know. You think it would have to be someone important.”