Perry Palmer, a docent at Pownalborough Court House in Dresden, was between tours one summer day in 2012 when she decided to check out the attic.

Electricity had just been added to the highest room of that 1761 building. Until then, the only way to navigate it was by flashlight, Palmer said.

While up there, the Brunswick woman spotted a woven bedspread, or coverlet, on a framework for stretching canvas.

“I walked around to the front of it and I saw this amazing mid-Victorian oil painting of two small children.”

She pegged its era from the painting style and the subjects' clothes and hairstyles.

“I was just blown away,” Palmer said. “I wanted to know who these kids were.”

The two turned out to be Alice Hooper and her younger brother Harrie Hooper, descendants of Samuel Goodwin. Generations of the landowner's family lived at the one-time court house, tavern and post office. They later kept it as a summer home until the Lincoln County Historical Association acquired it in 1954, Palmer said.

The circa-1850 painting's subjects are only one of its ties to the building and the family. The artist, Henry Cheever Pratt, a well-known oil painter in his time, was the children's uncle by marriage, Palmer continued.

The children's mother, Rebecca Johnson Hooper, was the older sister of Pratt's wife, Sarah Johnson Pratt. It's not known why Henry Cheever Pratt painted the work on a coverlet; he may not have had a big enough canvas with him, Palmer said.

“In Dresden, Maine, in 1850, where are you going to go to get artist's canvas?”

Palmer suspects the coverlet is linen because it’s smooth, and very tightly woven. The fabric should be determined when the painting gets cleaned, examined for loose paint, and otherwise conserved, she said.

But first the painting will be featured at the association's June 28 and 29 symposium on textiles, “Keeping Warm in 18th Century Maine.” Then it will go on exhibit at the court house, beginning in July, Palmer said.

The conservation work will come after the 2014 season; no further plans have been made regarding the painting, she said.

“We're not there yet.”

How significant is the piece, among all the items the association has? “That's a very open question, because it's a weird thing in the first place. It's not normal.

“And we're not an art museum, but he's (Pratt) part of the family.”

For more on the upcoming symposium, the court house and the association’s other properties, visit www.lincolncountyhistory.org.