A famous Eloise portrait vanished from New York’s Plaza Hotel in 1960, later turned up frameless in a dumpster and spent about 50 years rolled in illustrator Hilary Knight’s closet before selling at Bonhams for $100,000
Photo credit (L-R): Bonhams; New York’s Plaza Hotel The original Plaza Hotel portrait of Eloise has one of the strangest histories in American illustration. Painted by Hilary Knight in 1956 as a birthday gift for Eloise co-creator Kay Thompson, the tempera-on-board artwork hung in the Plaza’s lobby before disappearing during a Junior League Ball in…