A 143-Year-Old Portrait Fuels a US Government Turf War

livemint.com:

Do you know who Hugh McCulloch was? Don’t feel bad. Almost no one else remembers him either. Yet here in America’s hidebound capital, where power sometimes takes the shape of a rectangular gilded frame, two federal agencies are squabbling over the 143-year-old portrait of a long-dead public servant so obscure he’s more like Who McCulloch to Americans today.

In a drawn-out turf battle—a canvas battle, actually—both claim to be the rightful owners of the only known portrait of McCulloch. The painting currently hangs in a third-floor hallway at the Treasury Department, which might seem fair enough. McCulloch was a two-time Treasury secretary.

Not fair at all, says the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, an independent agency within the Treasury that occupies a separate building a mile and a half away. McCulloch was appointed during the Lincoln administration as the nation’s first comptroller of the currency, and was best known for creating a national currency that helped to bankroll the Union in the Civil War. More than three decades ago, the OCC says, it lent the portrait to Treasury.

Since then, despite the OCC’s pleas, Treasury won’t give it back. Treasury is in charge of federal borrowing, but for the OCC, this loan is long overdue. Current acting Comptroller Michael Hsu and his staff want the painting returned, people familiar with their thinking said, although they haven’t said so publicly.

Hsu, after all, is a career federal employee who got his current job thanks to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Social media and streaming content may rule supreme these days, but in Washington, portraits are still a big deal. Paintings of committee chairmen adorn congressional hearing rooms.