USA: The Person Over the Mantel

. NEW YORK, NY / Wall Street Journal / February 13, 2009 Lifestyles The Person Over the Mantel Inheriting an old family portrait can be a blessing. Or a big decorating problem. By Kathleen A. Hughes It may be a privilege to inherit an old painting of an ancestor, but it's not always good news. When Liz Lippincott's father offered her a large portrait of her great-grandmother, Elizabeth Graham Hirst, she hesitated. "It's an intensely dark painting. She looks completely scary," says Ms. Lippincott, who grew up in Pennsylvania but now lives in Manhattan Beach, Calif. "I had to take it because she's my namesake, and no one else in the family wanted it." The portrait, which has been stashed in a box in Ms. Lippincott's garage for the past decade, shows an attractive but slightly haggard woman in a long, gray gown. Her skin appears mottled, and the frame is mildewed. "I can't hang this in my living room," says Ms. Lippincott, looking at the painting. "My daughter would never have another play date." Old paintings of ancestors are usually handed down from generation to generation with mixed reactions. Many people treasure any portrait as a piece of family history. A masterpiece by a famous artist, such as Gilbert Stuart or John Singer Sargent, is proudly displayed over the mantel. But the rest -- your average portraits -- can present a dilemma. What do you do with them? A portrait may be dark and eerie, or just a really bad painting, but it's still a family image, and most people feel obligated to keep them forever. "Portraits have a magic to them," says Carolyn Kinder Carr, deputy director and chief curator of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. "Sometimes people feel they don't fit their decor, but they don't put them out with the trash." Who Is That? Sue Garton, a data administrator for the museum, says she has a large 19th-century painting of a stern relative wearing a brown dress and holding a handkerchief. "It's the ugliest thing I have ever seen," says Ms. Garton, but it hangs over her piano in Bethesda, Md. "Guests always ask, 'Is that an ancestor?' " She finds herself apologizing. "They're thinking why else would we have that in our living room? It doesn't match our decor at all." Read on... Copyright ©2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc