SMALLEST PAINTING.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 28 August 1914, Page 2

SMALLEST PAINTING.

GRAIN OF CORN MINIATURE.

After being missing for nearly half j a century, an oil painting, said to ! be the smallest in the world, has;; 1 een returned to the artist who1 created it. He is Samuel T. Schultz, f>22 Pear,-street, Camden, ■ who has a studio in Wilmington, Del. (America). The unique work of art, done on a grain of corn, has been in Europe since Schultz, then a youth of 19, painted it in 1888 and 1869 at Lancaster, Pa. The grain of corn was grown at Wheatland, , the home of President Buchanan, at Lancaster. When Buchanan died at Wheatland in 1868 Schult'/ was. a student of Charles E. Wise, the artist. He went to I Wheatland to view the body of . the ex-President and picked up an ear of corn on the estate. The proprietor suggested that he paint a miniature in oil on one of the grains. It was: ,Schultz's idea at first to paint the portrait of Buchanan, but finding a portraiture could not be accomplished, he adopted a scenic immature scene,, in which he was successful. That required a year of patient work, and the young artist, used nearly every grain of the e^ai" before he succeeded. Artist Wise declared it to lie a (masterpiece of miniature painting, and sent it to M-urope, where it went from one art centre to another. There was a request on the frame that the painting be sent back to Schultz at Lancaster. Recently the painting was located , through an advertisement, and the grain of corn was sent to him from Berlin, Germany.