Picker’s $50 Find At MN Garage Sale May Be Lost Van Gogh Worth $15M
A New York art research firm is convinced that “Elimar” is a long-lost work of Vincent van Gogh and one of about 300 lost during the Dutch master’s final year of life at an asylum in Southern France.
A New York art research firm is convinced that “Elimar” is a long-lost work of Vincent van Gogh and one of about 300 lost during the Dutch master’s final year of life at an asylum in Southern France. (Photo courtesy of LMI Group International Inc.) A painting an antique picker bought for 50 bucks at a Minnesota garage sale in 2016 may be a long-lost piece Vincent van Gogh created in the final days of his life at an asylum in Southern France
If it is, the painting could be worth $15 million.
Authenticity is a big “if” — something hard to come by in the art world. But art historian Maxwell L. Anderson, the former art director of the Metropolitan Art Museum, is staking his c0nsiderable reputation on “Elimar” being the real thing.
Anderson is the chief operating officer at the New York-based art research firm LMI Group International, which recently concluded the emotionally rich, profoundly personal painting is van Gogh’s work. The 18-inch by 16 ½-inch oil on canvas depicts a white-bearded man smoking a pipe as he repairs a fishing net by the sea is contemplative and pensive, as van Gogh was in his last days, according to historic accounts.
The firm bought the painting in 2019 for an undisclosed sum from the art collector in Minnesota who had had been intrigued by the thickly laid paint, a technique called impasto that van Gogh was known through his letters to have experimented with.
Anderson told The Wall Street Journal’s Kelly Crow that when he first saw the painting, he was “struck by what [he] saw.” The painting lacked some of the vivid colors typical of van Gogh’s work, but Anderson said he clearly recognized the “telltale signs of a deft painter at play.”
“Was I all in? No,” he said. “But I was super intrigued.”
LMI spent four years and a reported $30,000 authenticating the “orphaned” painting, using a rigorous, multidisciplinary research appproach involving a team of experts whose specializations range from art history and scholarship to DNA analysis, materials science and advanced data analysis.
A genetic analysis of a hair embedded in the thick brush strokes was found to have belonged to someone with reddish-brown hair, consistent with van Gogh’s hair as illustrated in 35 self-portraits. But it was too degraded to reveal any other clues. The investigation also showed consistencies in the letters E, M and A used in the “Elimar” inscription and an 1885 van Gogh painting, according to a 450–page report.
LMI said in a news release that “Elimar” is among about 150 art works van Gogh painted after checking himself into an asylum in Southern France in 1889. His creations there include masterpieces such as “The Starry Night,” “Irises” and “Almond Blossom.”
These paintings are among the last of the artist’s works before he shot and killed himself with a revolver in a field outside the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole psychiatric hospital in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, in 1890. He was 37 when he died. Though he was never formally diagnosed, it is widely believed van Gogh suffered form a combination of bipolar and borderline personality disorder
LMI said “Elimar” is one of the artist’s many “translations” of works by other artists. This one is based on a painting by Danish artist Michael Ancher (1849-1927) and connects van Gogh’s artistry with the storytelling of Hans Christian Andersen, whose character Elimar from “The Two Baronesses” (1848) serves as the work's title and parallels van Gogh’s struggles and desires for transformation, the LMI Group said in the news release.
“The analysis conducted on this distinctive painting provides fresh insight into the oeuvre of Van Gogh, particularly as it relates to his practice of reinterpreting works by other artists,” Anderson said in the news release.
“This moving likeness embodies Van Gogh’s recurring theme of redemption, a concept frequently discussed in his letters and art,” he said. “Through ‘Elimar,’ Van Gogh creates a form of spiritual self-portrait, allowing viewers to see the painter as he wished to be remembered.”
The Dutch master produced about 900 paintings during his lifetime. Researchers said as many as 300 of may have been lost during van Gogh’s time at the asylum.
“The discovery of a previously unknown van Gogh painting should come as no surprise,” the report reads. “It is well-known that van Gogh lost many works, gave away works to friends and was not particularly careful about any work he considered a study, of which there were many.”
“Elimar” still needs the validation of Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, approbation that is extremely difficult to obtain.
“People love it when things fall through the cracks, and it would be wonderful if they found a van Gogh — but they’ve got to pin everything down and get a scholar at the Van Gogh Museum to sign off on it,” Richard Polsky, an art authenticator who wasn’t involved in the project, told The Wall Street Journal.
Officials at the museum are doubtful the painting is authentic, and turned down a request about five years ago from the previous owner to consider it for evaluation, The Journal said.
LMI Group has asked for reconsideration.
The museum told The Journal it gets about 200 requests a year to authenticate van Gogh paintings, but 99 percent of them fail to meet its rigorous standards. After requests for authentication recently surged to 500 a year, the museum made it even more difficult to win consideration.
Now, to meet that step in the review process, art works must first receive a groundswell of support and endorsements from galleries, auction houses and other professionals.
The LMI plans to show off the piece a series of private viewings to Van Gogh scholars and art dealers around the world in the path to validation.
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