So prized, it seems, that when Mr. Trachte and his wife, Elizabeth, jointly filed for divorce more than a decade later, the cartoonist cooked up a ruse, presumably to ensure keeping the treasure himself, hiding the original in a secret niche behind a wall in his house in Sandgate, Vt.

What he and his wife subsequently divvied up -- the Rockwell and seven other paintings by other local artists -- were therefore copies, presumably made, their children say, by Mr. Trachte himself.

Last month -- more than three decades after the divorce, and nearly a year after Mr. Trachte's death -- his son Dave, 54, noticed a strange gap in a wood-paneled wall in his father's house. When he and his brother Don Jr., 59, gave it a shove, the wall suddenly slid open, revealing the Rockwell and the other canvases hanging on a wall in the hidden compartment.

"Every divorce is always a little messy," conceded Don Jr. in an interview.

Still awed by their March 17 discovery, the Trachtes' four children said they were unsure what to do. "We have no plans to sell it," Don Jr. said of the Rockwell painting. "We're still just taking it all in." So far, he said, they have found no note or other explanation from their father.

Under the 1973 divorce settlement, legal ownership of the eight paintings passed to the couple's children. Mr. Trachte (pronounced TRACK-tee) was allowed to keep the Rockwell in his possession, however, and it hung on a thinly paneled wall above a grand piano in his living room. The other works -- by artists like Gene Pelham, Mead Schaeffer and George Hughes -- went to his wife's new home in Arlington, Vt., without her suspecting forgery.