During this rigorous period of examination, Quick gained a new understanding of the artist. “It was a precondition for authenticity and also gave me insight into his work,” he notes. “I was able to arrive at some very new conclusions that could not have been discovered by any other means.”

After funding the indexing of old exhibition catalogues, magazines and microfilm, which accompanies each entry, Martucci underwrote the catalogue’s printing. This was carried out, after a delay of nearly a year, in Hong Kong, once the catalogue’s designers were able to color-correct and personally oversee the print run.

How does Martucci view the 15-year journey? “It was a lot of fun,” he says. “The purpose was quite provocative and certainly important. The outcome has exceeded my expectations, very much so. The amount of research that went into this becomes self-evident when one looks at the book. Every single picture has an extensive provenance with a commentary, a total exhibition history and summaries before each period. To me it’s quite unbelievable.”

“Today, people are interested in contemporary art,” Quick says. “Inness’s art is of a different kind. It’s not showy. It’s more subtle; that may be out of sync with today’s public.” But, he concludes, “reproductions have power.”

At the time of his death, George Inness was one of America’s best-known painters. Just over a century later, his spiritual landscapes contrast with the rather more jaded landscapes of contemporary art. A catalogue raisonné will never alter the fortunes of an artist overnight. But like a vision emerging from one of Inness’s mists, such a catalogue can provide the spark of recognition that makes the rediscovery of a great artist possible.

James Panero is the Managing Editor of The New Criterion.