One spring a few years ago, an auction house on the east coast advertised a George Caleb Bingham portrait for sale, Julia George. Not listed in E. Maurice Bloch’s The Paintings of George Caleb Bingham: A Catalogue Raisonné (University of Missouri Press, 1986), and with drab colors and a lifeless face, I questioned whether the artist of the sad young woman was actually Bingham. …
