$1m painting found in trash
Martin says:
The Independent has this report today on New Yorker Elizabeth Gibson who found a painting in a rubbish skip in Manhattan, which turned out to be Mexican painter Rufino Tamayo's 'Three People', a painting stolen from storage years ago, and worth $1 million!From the Independent:She had it hanging on her wall for months before the gallery stickers on the back of the frame led her to investigate more. The painting has now been returned to its owner who bought it as a gift for his wife in the 70s.
Gibson will get only $15,000, the original recovery offer.
Four years ago, Ms Gibson spotted a 38in by 51in canvas in a skip on the city's Upper West Side and claimed it as her own. The picture – of three standing figures in blurred yellow, orange and purple – looked rather good on her living room wall. It would probably still be there if Ms Gibson's curiosity had not prompted her to try to find out more about the work. Her researches revealed not only its identity but its value – about $1m (£500,000).LinkA few months after finding the picture, Ms Gibson spotted Tamayo's signature in the upper right-hand corner and stickers on the back from a series of galleries – including one in New York which said it had no record of the work.
About a year later, she got the first inkling of what she had found when a friend brought her auction catalogues which showed that Tamayos were selling for $500,000. The friend also had art books, one of which had a Tamayo – her Tamayo – on its front cover. "I was stunned," she said this week.
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Art is subjective, but I find that I am in good company. I would have thrown it in the trash, too.
Apparently, in addition to the $15,000 recovery reward originally offered, she will also receive an undisclosed percentage of the sale of the painting, which is being handled for the original owner by Sotheby's.
amazingly, the Independent seems to have lifted this story entirely from the front page of yesterday's New York Times, without any acknowledgment or new reporting at all.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/arts/design/23pain.html
Unless they count mistaking garbage bags on the curb for a dumpster or "skip".
Measly $15k reward for a friggin' ONE MILLION DOLLAR find??? Cheap bastards.
only 15 grand?
if anyone wants to give me only 15 grand for anything, drop me a line.
Yeah that's a crummy finder's fee. The norm is something like 10%.
A 1.5% tip for all that effort? Classy!
What a shame. If only we could see what it looked like before it was ruined by being put in the trash. Now look at it! It's just a mess!
Ho ho ho.
Ho ho ho.
The reward was originally offered when the painting was valued at 500k; since its value has doubled since then, it seems the minimally fair thing would be to double the reward. I say minimally, since (if you read the NY Times story) she seems to have done an enormous amount of work to get it back to the rightful owners, which would seem to merit something more than a basic finder's fee. Also, according to the Times, the Sotheby's fee is substantially less than 15k.
That's my 2k worth.
Only $15,000, eh? Whatever happened to a good deed being its own reward?
If I found $15,000 in the trash I wouldn't be too unhappy.
Yeah, not too sure what the complaint is about a $15k reward. Its a painting, that she found by accident, and likely only spent a few hours figuring out what it was and contacting authorities. A brand new car in exchange for a piece of oil covered cloth? Plus a % of the sales...sounds just keen to me.
"Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it."
could have been worse. she could have re-used the painting to paint a sad-eyed clown or some happy little clouds...
I blog about antiques in NYC and I've been writing about finding trash on the curb and turning it around for big bucks. There was another story a few weeks ago about a trailer park resident who pulled a chair out of his neighbor's garbage and sold it at auction for $198k. Obviously, after it was valued, he didn't knock on his neighbor's door and ask him if he wanted it back. The tough thing with the painting, though, was that the FBI was after it, so the finder would have had a tough time turning it around for her own gain.
@humanclone: I totally agree with you. 15K sounds like a good deal, considering that nobody has made an offer yet to pay a full million.
This is a great article to start thinking about art and value, something me and Anthony White are exploring artistically at Salathé & White.
I doubt the lady had access to black market buyers of stolen paintings. Itd be very difficult for her to get more than any kind of reward the owners were offering, so without turning it into them, she was sitting on something of not much worth, beyond home decor.
#2 mentioned possibility of the percentage of the sale... seems totally fair to me.
What is that, like $7,400 after taxes?
Liquis beat me to it (buy several hours): it's hard to sell a million dollar stolen painting. $15000 plus a percentage is a good deal. I'm not sure a "finder's fee" really applies here, since she wasn't actively looking for anything. She stumbled across $15000. Sounds like dumb luck. I should be so lucky.
According to the NYTimes article she put in substantial effort to discover it's identity and owner, including a trip to Baltimore and hotel stay. (which seems a little excessive, probably easier to just buy a copy of the Antiques Roadshow episode straight from PBS) I mean, sure $15k more than covers those costs. But you've got an owner who had completely given up looking for their painting, probably already got an insurance payout, and Sotheby's which is it DOES sell for $1 million is sure going to make more than $15k off it and all they have to do is auction it.
Still $15k is $15k, and it's a great story.
I'm trying to think of what I'd do if I found something on the street I thought was valuable. For the return of a $1 mil painting, a 1.5% thanks? There was a guy who sold a chair he'd found in his neighbor's trash for 189k. He must have actually known his neighbor and guessed at how much the chair was worth, since he got it appraised. I guess he didn't knock on the guys's door and offer any of the money back.