CHICAGO, April 21 (UPI) -- Norman Rockwell's painting of Marshall Field's Great Clock on Chicago's State Street, which graced the flagship store for more than 50 years, is missing.
Federated, which acquired Field's last year and plans to change the store's name to Macy's, is giving up on quiet diplomacy and turning up the pressure on the store's previous owner, Target Corp., to return it.
Cincinnati-based Federated, the nation's largest department store chain, believes the painting is in Target's Minneapolis headquarters.
The painting, which appeared on the Nov. 3, 1945, cover of the Saturday Evening Post, had rotated through the archive display of Field's State Street store since 1948, when the legendary painter donated the painting to Field's.
Rockwell's painting of "Rosie the Riveter" posed in front of an American flag sold in 2002 for almost $5 million, said Peter Rathbone, director of the American paintings department at Sotheby's, the London-based auction house.
"Prices do vary from subject to subject and period to period," Rathbone said.
Still, he said the Field's clock painting is valuable.
