Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/10/28/small-painting-that-french-wom.html
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A 13th century painting that had been hanging on a kitchen wall in French woman’s home sold for $26.8 in auction this weekend.
Can I lend you a couple zeroes? Or, like an “M?”
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In all honesty, $26.80 is probably as most I would pay for it.
Just because something is old doesn’t mean it’s worth more more $$ than I’ll ever see in my life.
But then again, people spend more than that on things I find even more useless so I guess to each their own.
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Knowing that somebody else would pay $26.8 million for it, you’d still only offer $28 and risk not acquiring something you could sell at a huge profit?
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…and then there are some ‘found art’ stories that don’t have a happy ending.
Lady’s dad found painting at the dump, she incurred substantial costs to get it to auction but ‘owner’ came forward at last second and wanted 75% of proceeds. Ended up borrowing money against painting’s theoretical value to cover her expenses (nowhere near it’s $150k Pound value), lender now claims total ownership and nothing to this point has been to court.
And of course class comes into it. She’s a single mum living very lean wanting to provide for her kids, the original ‘owner’ said “Whoa, before you buy cars and swimming pools, I need the money to pay for the upkeep of my vast family estate”.
Really a sad tale of greed, need and desperation. And the possibly stolen angle just kills the painting’s value. No winners here.
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I guess my deficiency is that I have no idea what someone would pay for what I consider junk. Back in college me and my friends would hit goodwill and buy cheap paintings and sculptures then bring them home and have fun improving them. There’s a very good chance that if this ended up in goodwill that it would have been painted over and googlie eyes glued on.
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$26.8 million for a painting of Christ?
Christ mocked indeed.
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The people is the painting:
“Christ- what an asshole!”
“I know, right? he’s a jerk. lets mock him”
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A far more interesting story would be how the painting ended up in her kitchen (and it’s providence before that). But I guess we’ll all settle for the lottery story…cuz, $$$ I guess.
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The lady who hung it in her kitchen has no idea where it came from. She’s 90 and really can’t remember, so I guess that story is lost. It makes me smile that she enjoyed it for all those years (I presume - it was hung pretty prominently and she didn’t take it down) without knowing it was ‘special’.
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That Italian Shepherd Girl painting my Dad had in the basement for decades, and which he claims I hit with a pellet gun? The Antiques Roadshow expert said “Early 20th century knock-off, probably no human hand touched it during its production. $2.” (no “m”). 
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She probably actually just enjoyed the painting because she liked it, not like whoever is going to buy it just because it is expensive. I’d like to think the original artist would be happy that a little old lady liked his painting for so long. Of course he would probably be happy that his art is considered so valuable too!
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Imagine their surprise when the frame turned out to be a disguised woodchipper?! Banksy strikes again!
Vasari (whose word should be taken with a pinch of salt) said Cimabue was haughty and proud. If anyone spotted a problem with one of his pieces “incontinently he would destroy that work, however costly it might be”.
Thus I suspect he may not have enjoyed having his picture in a kitchen.
Have they checked around the rest of her place, just in case?
a very young Alan Cummings in “Bernard abd the Genie” (1991) in a plot teist remarkably like rgw current story
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