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Small paintings, big stories: unusual art sales Ep. 4

A collector paid $30 for a dark, dusty painting at a Michigan estate sale in July. On 1 October it sold for $1,352,600. That is the headline of this edition, but the three stories below share something quieter: in each, a person looked twice at something everyone else had walked past.

1. The $30 painting that became a record

In July, a collector browsing an estate sale in Michigan spotted a signature on a painting tucked in a dark corner. It was “Alderman Merriam’s Shells”, a 1951 oil of ten seashells by the Chicago surrealist Gertrude Abercrombie. The scholar Susan Weininger authenticated it, and the restorer Julian Baumgartner cleaned it. “It was drab, missing its life,” Baumgartner said, “but now cleaned, retouched, and revarnished, it’s alive and radiant.”

Gertrude Abercrombie's 1951 painting "Alderman Merriam's Shells." Courtesy Freeman's via CNN.

Abercrombie had given the painting to a Kalamazoo doctor in 1952 in exchange for medical services, and it passed down through his estate. At Freeman’s on 1 October 2026, bidding opened at $80,000 and finished at $1,352,600 including the buyer’s premium, a new auction record for the artist. Freeman’s senior vice president Zachary Wirsum called the rediscovery “magnificent”. The buyer of the painting at the estate sale has not been named. The auctioneer described them as a longtime hunter of record albums and mid-century furniture.

2. The Constable that hung in a Texas museum for 50 years

For more than fifty years, a large oil painting hung in the Jefferson Historical Society and Museum in Jefferson, Texas. It came from Newhouse Galleries in New York in 1970, and it was treated as one of at least 85 known copies of John Constable’s famous composition “The Cornfield”.

The doubt began in 2017, when Marianne Berardi, co-director of European art at Heritage Auctions, saw it and suspected it was authentic. In 2023 the society paid for expert help, bringing in the art historian Anne Lyles and the conservator Sarah Cove. Cleaning tests, pigment analysis and infrared reflectography showed what Heritage described as “complete consistency” with Constable’s materials and working methods. The painting, measuring 55 by 48 inches, was identified as the largest known study for the finished 1826 picture.

John Constable, full-size oil study for "The Cornfield", c. 1820 to 26. Courtesy Heritage Auctions.

“This is a work by John Constable himself,” Berardi said. The society’s president, Weldon Nash, said a sale “could be an influx of cash for the museum”. Heritage Auctions offered the work in Dallas on 5 June 2026, with an opening bid of $150,000, and press reports put the likely price between $300,000 and $500,000. I could not find a published result for the sale.

3. The Old Master under the garage workbench

On 27 September 2025, the last day of a three-day sale at JS Fine Art in Banbury, a painting of the Madonna and Child sold for a hammer price of £685,000. It had been found beneath a garage workbench. The local vendor had bought it several years earlier without knowing what it was, according to the Antiques Trade Gazette.

The auction house catalogued it simply as “Italian Old Master”. Some specialists thought it dated from around 1500 and was by Perugino or his follower Lo Spagna, and others suggested Francesco Francia. The auctioneers thought Perugino was likely, but they chose not to attribute it without a stronger history. The pre-sale guide was £100,000 to £200,000. Four bidders were still in at £500,000, and the final two bid against each other in £5,000 steps in what the local radio station described as a 15-minute contest. The buyer is an anonymous private collector, reportedly researching the attribution.

The Madonna and Child, catalogued as "Italian Old Master", sold at JS Fine Art, Banbury, 27 September 2025. Courtesy JS Fine Art.

“It was one of those moments every auctioneer dreams of,” said Joe Smith, JS Fine Art’s founder and principal auctioneer.

What to check on a painting you own

You do not need a garage for this. Turn the painting over. Look for labels, stamps, gallery numbers, exhibition stickers and handwriting on the back or the stretcher. Photograph the signature in good light, and photograph the front and back square-on. Write down where and when you acquired it, and keep any receipt. Whether the painting is yours, an inheritance or your own work, those few minutes of notes are what a specialist will ask for first.

The thread that connects all three

Not one of these paintings looked remarkable to the people who first held them. What turned them into stories was documentation and expertise: a signature, a museum’s records, a conservator’s tests, an auctioneer who catalogued what could be proved and no more.

That is also the lesson for a living artist. Keep the label, the receipt, the exhibition record and the dated photograph, because the story of a painting is part of its value. And if you would like a free price range for an original painting of your own, our tool gives you one in about 30 seconds. It estimates original paintings only, and it is a guide to the market, not an authentication.

Get your free painting estimate

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