Matheson's move.

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There was a time when manufacturers of fine and costly motorcars would ask renowned artists to picture their product. The example we have here is a painting by Walter Meyner (StanfordFineArt.com). The picnic family is overlooking the "Wyoming Valley from Giant's Despair Mountain" near Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Not a coincidence this landscape as both mountain and town were very important to the make. This is where Matheson moved to in 1906. Second, we understand a hillclimb competition was there in 1907 (click)). The management of Matheson must have said: "Let's write our name on that hill!" And so they did. Matheson won the hillclimb with a 60 HP model in less than 2 minutes (check Hans Etzrodt's list of hill climb winners). So there is quite a story behind the simple picnic scene... Wherever the original painting now is, for the very few Matheson owners in the world (three ?) the painting now must be worth a fortune. (Horwitz Collection)

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