It was almost exactly seven years ago, when the University of Maryland's Medical School Alumni Association proposed a swap of a portrait they had, for a copy of a portrait we had in our collection.
We were thisclose to making the swap, when we discovered a letter from the 1850s that mentioned if UM ever wanted to "deaccession" the painting, they had to clear it with the families who commissioned it.
Since this wasn't realistic, we put things on hold.
Fast forward seven years, Davidge Hall is undergoing a major renovation, and the portrait needed to find a new home.
The portrait is of a man named Tristram Thomas, one of the 101 founders of MedChi, by Thomas Coke Ruckle, Jr. We already have two small portraits of Tristram, but the one from UM would be an amazing addition to our art collection. And we have another painting by Ruckle in our collection, too!
First, it measures eight by five-and-a-half feet!!! He was a tall man, with sloping shoulders, and always carried a gold-headed cane. Second, the catch was that he had no association or affiliation with the University of Maryland. He never attended the school. He did not lecture there. He was not a professor there. So, the question is why was his portrait given to the University. We haven't found any information on this.
The swappee was John Crawford, one of the original vaccinators, who was closely affiliated with the University in its earliest days.
John's brother was also a vaccinator and would send threads which had been soaked in smallpox to America. John would re-hydrate them and making a small nick between a person's thumb and forefinger, run the thread through the nick.
Our portrait of Crawford is a charcoal drawing, done in the early 1900s, most likely after an earlier portrait. We had it scanned in a high resolution and printed for the University's collection.
Oddly enough, we had the Tristram painting here at MedChi from the early 1960s to the mid-1980s, when we gave it back to the University of Maryland for some reason!
Yesterday, on possibly one of the hottest days of the year, we moved Tristram back to MedChi, a distance of just a mile or so.
And we also took Crawford to his new home at the Davidge Hall where he will be hung after the renovation.
Each man is now where he belongs and everyone's happy!
