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Norman Rockwell Auction Prices

One of Norman Rockwell's most famous oil paintings, discovered hidden behind a fake wall in its owner's Vermont home, has sold for $15.4 million.

“Breaking Home Ties," which "Henry" comic strip illustrator Donald Trachte Sr. purchased from Rockwell when the two were neighbors in Arlington , Vt. , was sold to an anonymous telephone bidder, Sotheby's auction house said Thursday.

Sotheby's said the price eclipsed a previous Rockwell record set by "Homecoming Marine," which it sold for $9.2 million in May.

"Breaking Home Ties" was included in a sale of American oil paintings.

Edward Hopper's "Hotel Window" also brought a record price when it sold for $26.8 million. The New York Times said the seller was actor

The auctioneer said the 1955 large scale canvas broke a 1990 record of $2.4 million for a Hopper, " South   Truro   Church ." The buyer's identity, who bid by phone, was not revealed.

"Hotel Window," which depicts an elegantly dressed woman staring vacantly and sitting on a sofa in a hotel lobby, had once been owned by Malcolm Forbes and this summer was exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

"Breaking Home Ties" became a centerpiece of Trachte's collection after he bought it for $900 in 1960. He made a replica of the painting in the 1970s, displaying it in his home while hiding the original behind the fake wall.

"I think he just wanted to tuck these in the wall for his kids," his son, Donald Trachte Jr., said when the discovery was made in April.

Experts said Trachte probably made the copy in about 1973, when he and his wife were going through a bitter divorce. The settlement let him keep the Rockwell.

Trachte died last year at 89 and apparently never told anyone the secret about his prize oil painting, which had appeared on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post in 1954 and was voted the second-most popular cover in the magazine's history.

The canvas shows a father and son sitting on a truck's running board as the boy leaves for college. Scholars of the folksy painter consider it one of Rockwell's best works.

Experts and Trachte's family had puzzled over inconsistencies between the Post cover and the canvas they assumed was the original. Among other things, the coloration and boy's face seemed different, but experts blamed poor preservation and sloppy restoration work.

The original was discovered while his two sons were scouring their father's studio. David Trachte noticed a gap in the wood paneling, and as the brothers pulled it out, they discovered the real Rockwell and other paintings.