Joyce and Gary Smay hold up the portrait Thursday of an unidentified man they found behind another picture in an old frame. The old portrait appears to either be drawn in pencil or charcoal. The Smays are trying to find who the man in the image might be. Seb Foltz/Butler Eagle

PENN TWP — Greg and Joyce Smay have a stranger in their Penn Township home. He was discovered in their house about a year ago, and the Smays still don’t know his name or where he’s from.

They’d like to find someone who knows him or a relative to take him off their hands.

But for now, the enigmatic man in the antiquated clothing stares out at them from his place in Joyce Smay’s sewing room.

They now are closer to finding who is pictured in the portrait than the day his face first was uncovered hidden behind another picture.

Joyce Smay said it began two years ago when she and her two brothers and a sister were cleaning out their mother’s house after her death.

Smay said she took a large picture of the Mormon Tabernacle Temple in Washington, D.C., that had hung over the fireplace in her mother’s family room while she was growing up.

“I liked the frame,” she said. “No one else wanted the picture.” She said the temple picture was becoming faded with the passing of the years.

Her mother’s temple picture was untouched for about a year when Smay decided she wanted to use its frame for a picture of her grandmother’s.

“The picture that is in the frame is from my grandmother’s house. She came to live with us when I was 3,” said Smay gesturing to a picture on her wall of girl and a dog that occupies the frame now.

“When I decided to change the frame and removed the picture I found that one underneath,” she said.

“That one” is an apparent charcoal drawing of a man in an old-fashioned bow tie and suit. He’s staring into the distance with a stern expression on his face.

“I was just shocked,” she said.“ I didn’t expect anything like that.”

Gary Smay said, “We’ve looked it over and there’s absolutely nothing on it. We thought surely there would be an artist’s name, a studio name, a year.”

Making it even harder to trace the picture’s origin or identity is the fact her grandmother bought the original painting in a yard sale, said Joyce Smay.

The portrait of an unidentified man Joyce and Gary Smay found behind another picture in an old frame. The old portrait appears to either be drawn in pencil or charcoal. The Smays are trying to find who the man in the image might be. Seb Foltz/Butler Eagle

“She got it at a garage sale at my aunt Florence Critchlow’s home. She lived in Renfrew,” she said. “It could be from anywhere. I contacted all my aunt’s children and they don’t know. She was the last of her brothers and sisters to die, so there is no one able to say if they know who this is.”

“I don’t know why she kept it. It must have had a connection. Who knows where it came from?” she said.

The Smays said they don’t know if it was even Joyce Smay’s aunt’s property to begin with. A friend or neighbor might have brought the picture to the garage sale.

The Smays agree that the portrait is a quality piece of art citing the shading on the bow tie and other touches in the drawing.

And, while they collect antiques, the Smays say but they don’t have expertise in vintage art.

Joyce Smay said she had a friend take a picture to the Butler County Historical Society, but “they didn’t know anything about it either. Maybe we’ll just give it to the historical society.”

“We’re certainly not going to destroy it,” she said.“ I would give it to the historical society if nobody claims it. Right now, I just have it in my sewing room.”

Gary Smay said, “If it wasn’t a quality charcoal drawing we wouldn’t be concerned. It’s obvious it must have taken hours to create. I imagine it would have been done at some cost.”

That dovetails with Butler County Historical Society executive director Jennifer Ford’s assessment of the mystery man’s picture.

“It looks exactly like the kind of picture you would find in a county history,” Ford said. “County histories were very popular in the late 1800s-early 1900s.”

Ford explained prominent men would have portraits of themselves or their homes and farms commissioned as illustrations of the county histories. The firms had illustrators and often, Ford said, for a straight fee a man could get his picture in a history.

“I imagine a man would sit for a photo, then an artist would sketch it out from that,” said Ford, adding the Smays would be welcome to come to the society’s Butler location and look through histories to see if they could match their portrait.

“We’re trying to find out who he is. He’s got to get back to his family somewhere,” Joyce Smay said.