Curation of artworks in smaller museums is often limited by time, funding, and expertise, and it can be easier to trust that previous identification of an artwork is correct. Sometimes, it only takes a visitor who is more familiar with an artist's work to change everything. Such is the case with an Edward Gorey preliminary illustration for a book cover that wasn't ultimately used.
F. Brooke Whiting of Cumberland, Maryland, was a librarian and literary curator, and also an art collector. When he died in 1998, he left his house and all its contents to the Allegany County Historical Society, who converted it into a museum. One of the artworks was an illustration by Edward Gorey labeled Edward Gorey, Front and Back Cover, The Curse of the Blue Figurine by John Bellairs. Author and illustrator Bill Dunlap volunteered at the museum, and found that the Gorey work must be mislabeled, because that book has a different cover illustration.
If you are an fan of Edward Gorey or the authors that used his artworks, you'll want to read the story of a previous-unknown illustration hiding in plain sight at Goreyana. -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Allegany County Historical Society)