One day, she suggested a picnic, but they couldn’t find a picnic table, “so when we came to a clearing in the woods, I suggested that we eat there,” she wrote later.

The next summer, Konigsburg and her family went on vacation to Yellowstone Park. The final inspiration for From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. It looks to me like a great bargain.” Two other articles about the bust followed, and there was such a media frenzy that, according to John Goldsmith Phillips, Chairman of Western European Arts, the sculpture was brought out of the auction house “in a box labeled by chance ‘musical instruments,’ in this manner passing unnoticed through a group of reporters who were gathered there.” 3. Rorimer, director of the museum, was delighted, according to the article, and said, “I’m overjoyed. Hamilton Rice, had been created by Leonardo da Vinci or Andrea del Verrocchio. The next important piece of the puzzle came in October of 1965, when Konigsburg read an article in the New York Times about a bust the Museum had bought at an auction, titled “ A $225 Sculpture May be a Master’s Worth $500,000.” One dealer guessed that the sculpture, which had come from the estate of Mrs. A New York Times article also provided inspiration. How had that lonely piece of popcorn arrived on the seat of that blue silk chair? Had someone sneaked in one night-it could not have happened during the day-slipped behind the barrier, sat in that chair, and snacked on popcorn? For a long time after leaving the museum that day, I thought about that piece of popcorn on the blue silk chair and how it got there.' 2. There was a velvet rope across the doorway of the room. Konigsburg wrote later that she was visiting the Met with her three children, going through the period rooms on the museum’s first floor “when I spotted a single piece of popcorn on the seat of a blue silk chair. Frankweiler began with a piece of popcorn on a chair. Frankweiler from a visit to the Met.Ī kernel of the idea for From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Konigsburg got the idea for From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Here are a few things you might not have known about From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. This beloved children’s book-about a girl and her younger brother who run away to New York City, live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and try to solve the mystery of who sculpted its newest statue-is a staple of elementary school reading lists.

El konigsburg from the mixed up files