Judge Joe Q. Koletsky loved to sail. He loved his wife, Ann, too, so every spring and summer afternoon, right after work, they put their Herreshoff daysailer to sea and spent the evening on the softly bounding main off the coast of Noank.

Joe loved the law, too. He studied it at Yale, then practiced it in New London, then became a judge. His demeanor and decisions were highly respected.

One day some 30 or 40 years ago, Joe came home with a painting. Ann remembers that he was “pretty tickled’ about it, excited to have bought it “on the street, from the artist.” She doesn’t remember which street, but she’s pretty sure it was in New London.

Nor does she remember the name of the artist.

It was a relatively simple watercolor of a small sailboat a lot like theirs, its burgundy spinnaker swollen with wind, the coast behind it flush with summer, the sky the kind that sailors like to see.

The painting ended up on the wall of the judge’s chambers in Hartford. There it hung, sunny and windy through decades of trials and judgments.

The judge retired and soon suffered signs of dementia. He struggled against it, continuing to sail and ski as long as he was able.

In March of this year, in a nursing home, he contracted Covid. It hit his brain, exacerbating the dementia. In August, he sailed on. He was 82.

His widow went through the personal effects in his office. Among them was the beloved painting that, despite its artistic simplicity, had spoken to him in some deep secret way.

That was when she started wondering who had painted the scene which so realistically depicted the life she and Joe had led on the water.

She was at an age where her home in Waterford was full of beloved clutter, the accumulations of a lifetime, everything so full of memories and meanings. But it was time to downsize. Things had to go.

No one throws away art. But what to do with the one that had meant so much to her dearly departed? And who was the artist? Perhaps he or she would like to have it again or at least know its history.

The logical place to find out was New London’s Hygienic Gallery. Mrs. Koletsky showed the painting to the director, Bess Gaby.

Gaby was intrigued. She, too wanted to discover the artist. She showed the painting to the Hygienic crowd, but no one recognized the style.

The painting was unsigned. The back was sealed in such a way that, if cut open, it would ruin the framing. But it bore one clue: a sticker with the name of the New London framing shop Studio 33, right across the street.

Gaby took the painting over there, presented it to owner Sara Munro. In an instant, Ms. Munro said, “Mack Lucas.”

Munro describes Lucas as a “real character” who, back in the late 1970s and ‘80s used to come in to bum scraps of materials he could paint on. He also salvaged paintable surfaces from dumpsters: cardboard, window shades, wood, anything more or less flat. He had the appearance of the classic starving artist but owned a house on Blinman St. He hung around the Hygienic when the gallery was in its infancy.

Mr. Lucas passed away in 1988, but he lives on in a painting that was loved.

And Mrs. Koletsky would like to contribute the painting to the community that she and Joe loved, and it looks like the Hygienic may be its new home.

Glenn Cheney lives in Sprague.