Explore the G-319 about the Provenances of the History in this artwork.
G-319 Eakins died in 1916, and a collection of his unsold paintings was exhibited at the 1926 Sesquicentennial Exposition in Philadelphia. PMA Director Fiske Kimball saw the abandoned version of Wrestlers at the world's fair, and inquired about buying it. According to Kimball, Cranmer (who was acting as the dealer for Eakins's widow) said the abandoned version had been valued low, and had not been included in the Eakins memorial exhibitions of a decade earlier. "He [Cranmer] said he would find out the price. It was $400. I bought it and by Christmas 1926 it was hanging in the library at Lemon Hill." Letters from Cranmer to Kimball in the PMA Archives identify the wrestler on top as Joseph McCann, but do not identify the man on the bottom. Kimball died in 1955, and made the abandoned version a bequest to his museum.
Fiske Kimball Philadelphia Lemon Hill Sesquicentennial Exposition