Bought for $4, a Thrift Shop Painting Could be Worth $250,000 at Auction

A  painting bought in 2017 for $4 in a Savers thrift shop in Manchester, N.H., and stashed away in a closet by the woman who bought it while looking for frames to reuse, could be worth $250,000 when it heads to auction later this month.

The long-forgotten painting is by N.C. Wyeth, the prolific Maine artist and patriarch of the Wyeth family of painters, according to an expert at Bonhams Skinner auction house. The painting, which highlights Bonhams Skinner “American Art” event Sept. 19, is one of four Wyeth completed for a 1939 edition of Helen Hunt Jackson’s book Ramona, originally published in 1884.

How the painting ended up in the thrift shop is anyone’s guess, but the anonymous buyer found it stashed against a wall along with damaged posters and prints, according to the auction house. After hanging the painting in her bedroom for several years, the antiques enthusiast eventually stored the painting in a closet in her home and forgot about it.

Last May, while doing some spring cleaning, the painting was rediscovered and images of it were posted on Facebook. Comments on her post suggested the painting could be something special. The woman was encouraged to contact Lauren Lewis, and art expert who worked with three generations of the Wyeths: N.C. Wyeth, his son, Andrew Wyeth, and his grandson, Jamie Wyeth. Lewis was “99% certain it was authentic” after seeing the painting, she told The Boston Globe.

“While it certainly had some small scratches and it could use a surface clean, it was in remarkable condition considering none of us had any idea of its journey over the last 80 years,” Lewis told the Globe.

The auction record for any member of the Wyeth family was set last year during the sale of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s collection at Christie’s New York, where Andrew Wyeth’s 1980 painting “Day Dream” sold for more than $23.2 million, more than seven times the high estimate of $3 million.

 

An N.C. Wyeth work, “Ramona,” was bought for $4 at a New Hampshire thrift shop. It could be worth $250,000 at auction.

Photo: Courtesy Bonhams Skinner

 

Hal Crecy Clown Painting

Q:  I came across this clown painting at a yard sale and bought it. Not everyone likes clowns, I know, but there’s something about it that I enjoy. From what I can see, the painting is signed “Hal Crace.” Any idea how much it’s worth? A:  Determining original art and deciphering an artist’s signature often […]

Woman’s Flea Market Find Is Rare Painting by Van Gogh Friend 

It pays to be discerning at thrift stores! Flea market and thrift store enthusiast Katherine Mathews loves browsing at Warehouse 839, a Saco, Maine, shop that specializes in everything from estate furniture to nick-nacks. In April, she was drawn to a 13-inches-by-19-inches watercolor with the signature E.W. Brooke while rummaging through the warehouse. She paid $45 for the image of a Japanese woman and a child. On her way home, she stopped in a grocery store parking lot to look up the name on her iPad. She soon saw a Vincent van Gogh connection. The 19th-century painter Edmund Walpole Brooke shared a friendship with Vincent van Gogh just before van Gogh committed suicide in July 1890. Brooke had grown up in Japan, a place that fascinated and inspired the Dutch painter. The two went on painting trips together into the French countryside.   

“He is a very enigmatic person,” Tsukasa Kodera, a curator and professor of art history at Osaka University in Japan, said of Brooke. Kodera spent almost 10 years hunting for information about Brooke but finding a Brooke painting stymied him. At least until now. Mathews, with the help of her husband, John, made contact with Kodera after reading about his work. The professor thinks they have probably discovered that rare thing, an original Brooke. 

Kevin Keraghan, who owns the Maine shop, acquired the painting about 15 years ago from the estate sale of a family in New Hampshire. That family had originally come from California, which Kodera thought a good sign since two of Brooke’s brothers lived there. 

No value has been attached yet to the painting, which is currently being authenticated. 

 

Really? Another Lost Valuable Painting Discovered in NYC Apartment

Lighting can strike twice — within the same few blocks. Just two week after the discovery of a lost Jacob Lawrence painting in a New York City apartment, another panel in a 30-panel series “Struggle: From the History of the American People” has been found in a nearby building. A nurse living on the Upper West Side read about the discovery of the Lawrence painting and how the series of paintings were on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, right across Central Park. The name Jacob Lawrence, one of the few Black artists of his time to gain recognition in the art world, sounded familiar. She realized it was the name on a small painting — a gift from her mother-in-law — that had hung in her dining room for two decades. A 1996 New York Times profile on Lawrence was taped on its back. The nurse told her 20-year-old son, who found a black-and-white photograph being used as a placeholder for Panel 28. The “location unknown” painting was titled “Immigrants admitted from all countries: 1820 to 1840—115,773” and it was their painting 

 

After three days of unreturned calls to the museum, the nurse and her son went in–person to request someone look at her photos of the painting. Within hours, two co-curators of the Lawrence show and a paintings conservator were making a second trip to an Upper West Side apartment to verify the authenticity of a Lawrence painting that had not been seen publicly since 1960. Unlike the owners of the other recently discovered panel, the nurse who owns Panel 28 said she would consider selling it.  Panel 19 sold for $413,000 in 2018.

What’s on your wall? 

 

 

 

“Lost” Flemish Painting Hiding in Plain Sight 

Ever look at something every day but not really see it?  How about suddenly discovering that a painting you thought was a copy turning out to be an authentic 16th-century work by a Flemish master — Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678) — whose work sold between $3,500 and $441,000 in 2020?  The painting titled “The Holy Family” hung in a planning and development office hall in Brussels, Belgium, since the 1960s. 

The “incredible discovery” was made by the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage with the help of international experts as part of an inventory. Jordaens was a leading Flemish Baroque painter, along with Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck. Experts believe he created the work in 1617 or 1618 when he was just 25. Analysis found that the wood used in the panel depicting the Baby Jesus with Joseph, Mary and her mother, Saint Anne, came from the same tree as one used by Van Dyck. Art historian Constantin Pion said Van Dyck and Jordaens “very likely” worked in Rubens’ studio at the same time. Jordaens used the same composition, with variations, in three other “Holy Family” paintings held by the Metropolitan Museum of New York, the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and Munich’s Alte Pinakothek, the statement said.

After its restoration, the work will be shown at the end of next year at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels. 

 

 

 

Gonzalo Endara Crow Painting

Q: Many years ago I saw a fantastical painting by Gonzalo Endara Crow and decided to buy it for about $3,000. It’s acrylic on canvas and is about 23 1/2 inches high and 19 1/2 inches wide. The frame seems to be original. It came with a certification, written in Spanish, authenticating the picture and valuing it at $10,000. The certificate is signed by the Fundacion Endara Crow. What can you tell me about the artist and the value of this picture?

A: Gonzalo Endara Crow (1936-1996) was an Ecuadorean painter and sculptor. He is known primarily for his paintings, which combine realism and fantasy. They have been called “magical realism.” This painting combines a realistic village scene and floating apples. Endara Crow did not give the picture a title. Many paintings by Gonzalo Endara Crow sold in the 1990’s for $5,000 to $20,000. In 2009 one sold around the same size as yours for $2,600.  The painting has to be seen by an expert to determine the value.

Garden Wall Was Hiding Spot for Priceless Painting

France Scrambling to Keep a “National Treasure” in its Country

It is a story proving to have more twists and turns than a James Bond thriller. An elderly French woman thought the religious painting hanging in her kitchen was just an everyday Greek religious icon. (See Kovels Komments, Oct. 23, 2019.) But the picture, painted on a 10-inch by 8-inch wooden panel and spotted by an auctioneer clearing the house, proved to be part of a work by the famous Florentine artist and early Renaissance master Cimabue (1240-1302). It auctioned in October for $26.8 million, far above the estimated value of about $6.6 million. The buyers were Chilean collectors from the United States who specialize in Italian masterworks. They outbid the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for the painting.

 

Here’s where the tale started twisting: The painting, titled “Christ Mocked,” was named a national treasure by France’s Minister of Culture and its export was blocked as the country works to raise the nearly $27 million to buy it. The ministry wants to keep it in the country, hanging in the Louvre near another painting by Cimabue, “Maestà.” The ministry said the country will have 30 months to raise the funds.

 

Sadly, the 90-year-old woman who put the artwork up for auction died shortly after the sale and her heirs will have to pay almost $10 million in inheritance tax.

 

While the sale has proven to be complicated, no doubt its discovery has spurred many to scramble through their parents’ and grandparents’ houses looking for another multi-million-dollar pot of gold. Who knows what’s still out there, hanging on kitchen walls?

Photo: Washingtonpost.com/Charles Platiau/Reuter