In a photographic scrapbook titled The Old Homestead, 1914, Isaac “Ike” Elston III collected pictures of or related to the home of his father Isaac Compton Elston Jr. In this book, a photo of The Little Fruit Seller can be found, but it wasn’t taken in the Elston Homestead in Crawfordsville, Indiana.

An Image of the Murillo copy hanging in the Mills House over the fireplace in the 1800s. The home is decorated with plants and flowers for a wedding. Photographic scrapbook “The Old Homestead”, Robert T. Ramsey Jr. Archival Center, Wabash College, Crawfordsville, IN, file DC1022j.

This photo shows the painting hanging over a fireplace in the Mills family home in Marietta, Ohio. Ike’s mother was a Mills, and her family home was the location where the painting was previously located. Being very influential in their town, the Mills made major donations in Marietta, like ten bells to a church and their home to Marietta College, which now serves as the president’s residence.

For some time, Ike believed that the painting given to him by his mother’s maiden family was an original created by Murillo. Found among the papers in the office of Ike Elston was the book, The Masterpieces of Murillo, and a letter addressed to him from José Dalman of Barcelona, dated July 12, 1909. As José Dalman describes this painting as being an original, which we now know is not the case because the original is located in the Alte Pinakothek museum in Munich, Germany.

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