(May 2007) WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Three investors have purchased an 1883 cyclorama painting of the battle of Gettysburg that has sat in storage since the 1930s.

Antiques dealer Larry Laster, the agent for the trio, said the contractual agreements between buyer and seller require that the actual amount remain secret. This was the first cyclorama of Gettysburg done by French artist Paul Philippoteaux. It was so popular when displayed in Chicago that he was commissioned to paint another. The second, done in 1884 and nearly identical to the first, belongs to Gettysburg National Military Park.

Laster, owner of Larry D. Laster Fine Art and Antiques in Winston-Salem, said finding a buyer took only a matter of weeks. Laster was brought in last fall to serve as agent for Wake Forest University, which was given the painting in 1998 and has been trying to find a new home for it.

The sale concluded in late March. The investors have asked to remain anonymous for now, Laster said, making the purchase only as BPW Investment.

He said the painting "is the most phenomenal thing I've ever seen. It's a life-changing experience. Everyone who's visited it has asked why this has been stored away. The paint is very vivid."

The 376-foot work is rolled up in 14 cylinders and continues to reside at Wake Forest, where the buyers are paying storage fees.

Now the threesome is looking to sell it again, and they've asked Laster to stay on as their agent and make it happen once more He cited his familiarity with the painting, plus the fact that its size would make it "rather intimidating" for most agents.

"It's the largest painting available in the world for sale as of this moment," he said.

Laster expressed confidence that the six-ton work would attract a buyer who will finally put in on display, either in a museum setting or a commercial establishment.

"This painting is finally going to be back in public hands," he predicted. "It has so much to offer, I think someone will feel this needs to get redisplayed."

Another possibility, he added, is that the owners may donate the painting to a university or other institution. "We're still up in the air about where it will end up."

Laster described the three buyers as "a good group of gentlemen." Two have an interest in the Civil War, he said, while the third was "extremely interested in art."

Philoppoteaux made four cyclorama paintings of Gettysburg, each representing Pickett's Charge, the battle's climax on the afternoon of July 3, 1863. The paintings at Wake Forest and at Gettysburg are the only two known to survive.

The Gettysburg painting is undergoing at $9 million restoration and will not be on display again until the park's new visitor center opens next year.

Laster noted that the Wake Forest painting is slightly larger than the one at Gettysburg, and also that Gettysburg's was a "copy," being the second painted.

Philoppoteaux traveled to Gettysburg in 1882 and spent several weeks sketching the battlefield, talking to veterans and having photographs made. The "Battle of Gettysburg" opened in Chicago the following year.

Laster said it was a popular feature of the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, and it went on display in eight U.S. cities before returning to Chicago in 1933 for an international industrial exposition. It has not been on display since.

The painting went into a warehouse, which partially burned. Laster said the painting had survived the fire behind a concrete-block wall.

The late artist Joseph Wallace King, a fan of large paintings, undertook a 30-year search for the work that ended with success in 1965. King hoped to display it but never did. He willed it to Wake Forest upon his death in 1998. It was appraised several years ago at $2.5 million.

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