For a century the gallery had been content to attribute the painting to its best-known donor. (attribute: ascribe, impute, credit) The original attribution rested on an ascription in a sales catalog. (attribution: ascription, imputation, assignment; ascription: attribution, imputation, assignment) A subsequent compilation repeated the name without looking at the canvas. (compilation: collection, anthology, compendium) Dara thought this a flimsy basis for the enormous gilt label. (flimsy: weak, insubstantial, fragile) Yet a conjecture of her own would be no improvement. (conjecture: guess, surmise, speculation)
She asked permission to document the back of the frame. (document: record, substantiate, chronicle) Under the varnish she could make out an unfamiliar name, then an address. A repository across town held a letter from the donor thanking the artist for the picture. (repository: storehouse, depository, archive) This was firsthand evidence of patronage. (firsthand: direct, personal, immediate; patronage: sponsorship, support, backing) It was poor evidence of authorship. The museum's own archive would allow her to disprove the old assumption without naming a successor on the strength of a guess. (disprove: refute, confute, invalidate; assumption: supposition, premise, presumption)
Dara's new card gave the wording of the letter and a photograph of the inscription. Asked what name to print in the catalog, she pointed to a blank line. By closing time the donor's granddaughter had arrived carrying a second letter. This one began, "To my sister, who painted our house."