Antiques collector’s $50 garage sale purchase may be a Van Gogh worth $15 million
Antiques collector’s $50 garage sale purchase may be a Van Gogh worth $15 million
Share:
The oil painting was found by an unsuspecting antiques collector in a Minnesota garage sale in 2016. A painting that sold for less than $50 at a garage sale could be an original Van Gogh worth $15 million, experts say. The painting bears a resemblance to Van Gogh’s work and depicts a fisherman smoking a pipe as he tends to his net on an empty beach.
![[Vincent Van Gogh arrived at the Saint Paul monastery in May 1889 in Saint-Remy de Provence]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/05/30/16/iStock-175231064.jpg)
Experts have called the painting “Elimar” because the name is etched into the lower right-hand corner of the canvas. The group’s findings will be shared with Van Gogh specialists and art dealers around the world later this month, according to the Journal.
They argue that the portrait was painted while Van Gogh was in the Saint-Paul asylum in France’s Saint-Remy de Provence between May 1889 and May 1890. “Elimar is clearly based upon a painting by the Danish artist Michael Ancher,” the report said. “Van Gogh did not copy but ‘translated’ Ancher’s work.”.
Experts said that the portrait also represents a time in the artist’s life when he was “returning to themes and images from his youth.”. “Portraits of fisherman and themes of the life at sea were some of his earliest subjects,” the report noted. The fisherman was “a persona and subject matter that was very close to him for the lonely and dangerous lives that fishermen led— in his lifetime.”.
