Their Masterpiece (1913)

• 72%
• 1913
• Drama
• Allan Dwan
• J. Warren Kerrigan
• Pauline Bush
• Wallace Reid

Absorbed in his painting, Robert Gainsworthy neglects his beautiful wife - not intentionally - but rather in the pre-occupied way of a man who did not want the single train of thought broken. He worked for days in his studio without ever speaking to her and the strain told on their relations for the wife brooded bitterly. Jack Sanders, a globe-trotting cousin of Robert, visited at the Gainsworthy home. He took many strolls with the heart-sick wife and found himself madly infatuated. Sunken deeper and deeper into the fervor of his work, the artist did not see. One day, while rising in his studio, he surveyed the picture and found the face wanting. Looking from the window, he saw the wife and the cousin idly strolling arm in arm. He conceived a plan. He would accuse her of unfaithfulness, study quickly the horrified expression on her face, and paint that expression into the woman of his canvas. He did so and worked many hours feverishly. Stung to the quick, the innocent wife fell easy prey to the machination of the scheming cousin. The latter proposed that, she write a note of farewell and go with him temporarily until the husband should come to himself. She fell into the trap easily. Arising from his canvas, the artist knew that his fame was made. He thought of his wife for the first time and started to go to her. He found the note, the world opened before his feet, the pleasure of his success turned to bitterness. And then the cousin proved unworthy of his trust and the artist again reclaimed his wife, both happily in a new and better understanding.