A Tricky One for the Team . . .

I'm distantly related to George Eyster Senseney (1874-1943), an artist of some note (one of his pieces is in the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In addition to a couple of his paintings, my family has something else he helped create as a "collaborative" effort.

My paternal grandparents lived on a piece of property called, "Peacock Farm" and as you might expect there were many artistic representations of peacocks in the house. One of those that passed to us is a large hand-hooked rug safely preserved in a large wooden frame built by my Dad around the 1950s. When the framed peacock rug passed to me I discovered written on the wooden backboard, in my Dad's handwriting, that the design had been created by George Senseney whose wife began hooking the rug, and after being partially completed his Mom (my Grandmother) finished the hooking.

Attached you'll see a photo of it as it hangs from our upstairs - the portion of the rug that can be seen measures 45"x30". Unfortunately, the rug and frame are too heavy to pull up in order to provide the exact wording on the back (or to get a photo) -- it has been hanging there for 13 years!

My question is simply this - how in the world do I figure out how much I should insure it for, or is its association with Senseney so oblique that it should be treated like any other hand-hooked rug of the era? I appreciate any insights!

 

Its a nice rug but since George senseney was known for paintings and not rug making i don't believe value would be very high. In my opinion anyway.

 

That makes sense (or, dare I say, makes "sens-eney"?

 

You never know. Maybe not a fortune, but I bet all sorts of art schools would love to have it. It might also surprise you if it went to the right gallery. If you were going to sell it, I'd market it as textile art rather than a hook rug since it's framed. The design is a lot better than the usual, but beyond that...dunno.

 

Thank you "evelyb" -- great thoughts! The other issue is that after all the years in the frame it's starting to pull from the top, creating a small "hump" nearer the bottom. So along with everything else, I'm trying to figure out if it's worth having a conservator of some sort fix it up.

 

Thank you for your thoughts, “I Need”—I hope to keep it in the family, too.