In the early part of his career, the 20th century French painter, Henri Matisse, was savaged by art critics as a “fauve,” or wild beast for his unashamed use of bright colors. By today’s standards, the fauve school that Matisse helped found is fairly tame. And before his long career was over, Matisse would actually be embraced and lauded by the establishment for continuing the traditions of French classic painting.

One of the most famous—or infamous—events involving Matisse took place on this date in 1961. Luckily, Matisse wasn’t alive to witness it. On October 17, an exhibition called “The Final Works of Henri Matisse” opened at the New York Museum of Modern Art. One of the works on display was a lithograph called Le Bateau (The Boat), a simple sketch of a sail boat and its reflection on the sea.

Early in December, 47 days after the exhibit had begun, a stockbroker named Genevieve Habert stared at the work and felt something was wrong. She walked over to the security guard, pointed to the lithograph and suggested that it was upside down. The security guard brushed off the remark. So Ms. Habert tried talking to other museum personnel. But nobody would listen. The next day, she called The New York Times which sent a reporter who verified the mistake. Le Bateau was indeed hanging upside down. The lithograph was properly rehung the very next day.

Apparently, there’s a rich tradition of museums displaying art works upside down. Just a few notable examples:

• In 1936, Spencer Nichols’s seascape Phantasy hung upside down for 18 days at a New Jersey museum. When notified of the mistake, museum officials said it was no big deal since it was an abstract painting anyway.
• In 1936, a Manchester art gallery displayed a painting by Robert Rauschenberg upside down. Officials discovered the mistake when they noticed that the picture of the painting in the exhibit catalog didn’t quite match the work actually hanging in the gallery.
• In 1965, the National Gallery in London hung Van Gogh’s Grass and Butterflies upside down.
• In 1979, the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, CT, displayed Georgia O’Keeffe’s The Lawrence Tree upside down. It remained that way for 10 years until an official from the Washington, D.C. National Gallery of Art discovered the error after unearthing an old O’Keeffe letter describing the work.

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