Is a Garage Sale Find a Van Gogh Masterpiece or Junk?

A Minnesota discovery baffles the art world, and battle lines are drawn over the question: Is it a Van Gogh or Not? A leading authority weighs in on the fray.

The work in question is either a masterpiece or something far different. Courtesy LMI Group International, Inc.

When is a garage sale find a treasure, and when is it something differently different, so different that it causes an international stir in the art world? A collector is just starting to find out.

Years ago, a collector paid $50 for a painting at a garage sale in Minnesota. The painting was a portrait of a fisherman smoking a pipe while mending a net, with the word “Elimar” painted on his sleeve. The collector suspected it was a previously unknown work by Vincent van Gogh. However, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, responding in 2019 to the collector’s inquiry, disagreed.

Undeterred, the collector sold the painting to LMI Group, a company in New York that applies data science to art and cultural heritage matters, including authentication. After a study culminating in a report over 400 pages long (and, according to the Wall Street Journal, costing more than $30,000), LMI concluded that the painting is a Van Gogh after all; it was painted while he was in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence from 1889 to 1890, toward the end of his career.

In a press release, LMI cited statements from Van Gogh’s letters and visual similarities to his later paintings to support their findings. Their technical analyses concluded that the materials dated to the 19th century and the lettering in “Elimar” matched Van Gogh’s writing in other paintings. They even conducted a DNA analysis of a hair embedded in the painting.

Despite the data, the Van Gogh Museum, which is considered the main authority on authenticating paintings attributed to the artist, is not convinced. In an email to Artdependence magazine, a spokesperson for the museum stated that the painting “is not an authentic Van Gogh.”

If the painting is really a Van Gogh, it could be worth millions. If, as the museum maintains, it is not, it remains at least a fun garage sale find. As always, the market will decide which scenario plays out.

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