Date: Fri 20-Mar-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

H.B.-Glover-portrait-auction

Full Text:

A Newtown Notable Goes Up For Auction

(with cut)

Seven-year-old Henry Glover sat stock straight in a rush-seated chair looking

a little dour. His formal clothes were buttoned up tight, and a billowing

cumulus-of-a-collar grasped at his neck. In his lap, a book opened to an

illustration of a rose. Poor boy.

Well actually, Henry Beers Glover was anything but a poor boy. As a member of

one of Newtown's leading families, he led a life of privilege. The indignity

of having to sit for a portrait by artist T.H. Cauldwell was a far cry from

the indignities typical 19th century boys were subjected to. But he suffered

through the experience stoically, and for his efforts, Skinner's auction house

of Bolton, Mass., hopes to realize $4,000 to $6,000 for the portrait and a

hide-covered trunk that belonged to H.B. Glover.

The portrait and trunk are lot #2 in a auction of American furniture and

decorative arts slated to start at noon in Skinner's Bolton gallery on Sunday.

While Henry Beers Glover was not "mayor of Newtown, Connecticut" as the

Skinner catalogue asserts, he did leave his mark upon the town. Born here in

1824, he moved to Cleveland early in his life, only to return in the middle of

the century. An attorney, he founded the Newtown Savings Bank with the help of

local businessmen in 1855, and he built what is perhaps Newtown's most stately

Main Street home -- the Budd House, currently owned by William and Carolyn

Greene. The house got its name from Mr Glover's granddaughter, Florence Budd,

who lived in the house until 1977.

Joan Crick of Glover Avenue is the great, great grandniece of Henry Beers

Glover. (Glover Avenue was named after Joan's grandfather, William B. Glover,

who did serve for a time as first selectman.) "I knew that there were

portraits of Henry Glover in the Budd House at one time, but the Budd family

probably took them with them when they moved," she said. Mrs Crick said she

does not recall ever seeing a portrait of H.B. Glover as a boy.

A representative of Skinner's would not reveal who was selling the portrait,

but did say it was not a painting that had been in the current owner's family.

The owner is simply a collector who had purchased the painting and was now

selling it, according to the auction house.

And will Mrs Crick be bidding thousands of dollars to acquire this portrait of

her ancestor?

"Oh, I don't think so," she said.