1890 painting of Kotel, discovered in a California synagogue storage, sells for $3.4 million

Jewish News reported in the end of January:

A hyper-realistic 19th-century painting of worshippers at the Western Wall that spent many forgotten years in a synagogue’s storage room is headed to auction at Sotheby’s New York on Thursday.

The Western Wall, created circa 1890 by German artist and illustrator Gustav Bauernfeind, is expected to fetch an estimated $2 to $3 million.

In his day, 1848-1904, Bauernfeind, who had some Jewish ancestry, was a well-known ‘Orientalist’ painter who stood out for his realism and focus on architecture. This particular piece was donated to a synagogue in Southern California in the mid-1980s by the family of Theodore Cummings, a former US ambassador to Austria and confidante to President Ronald Reagan. However, about 10 years ago, during renovations on the synagogue, the painting was placed into storage — where it remained until the executive director of the congregation discovered the piece last summer.

The Western Wall depicts, in remarkably realistic fashion, a diverse set of worshippers huddled together at the base of the Kotel. Some Jews wear the fur hats known as shtreimels, while others wear fezzes and still others wear black hats and kippot. Nearly all of the men are wrapped in prayer shawls, while women are shown in the rear of the scene, their hair and bodies wrapped in colorful scarves and shawls.

The painting is four feet high by three feet wide.