Family Uncovers An ‘Old Painting’ In Their Attic, Quickly Realizes It’s Worth Millions

They didn’t think much of it, but they decided to get the painting examined by experts in art authentication. Using modern technology, experts quickly got to work.

In 1908, Christian Mustad, a Norwegian industrialist and fledgling art collector, purchased a unique painting from an unknown source. An avid art enthusiast, Christian found the piece strikingly beautiful.

Soon, news of Christian’s new acquisition made its way to the upper echelons of the Norwegian art world. Politicians, royalty — everyone and anyone with a penchant for expensive pieces of art — heard rumors of the mythical piece.

Rich and influential art collectors across Europe began to contact the young collector hoping to catch a glimpse of the painting and possibly make an offer. Christian suddenly had his hands full.

As it turns out, Christian’s hunch was right. According to the appraisers, he had an incredibly valuable painting on his hands — an elusive piece by one of art history’s greatest virtuosos.

When the appraisers finally authenticated the piece, Christian was thrilled to learn he had a genuine work of art created by a true artistic genius: Vincent Van Gogh.

The piece, titled Sunset at Mountmajor, was painted in the Dutch countryside in 1888. Depicting a lush forest landscape, it’s typical of the master’s signature style.

The offers began to pour in, but it was one visit that changed Christian’s fortunes. An influential French ambassador made a trip to view the Van Gogh for himself.

But it might not be that simple/ Another version of the story tells of a visit by the Norwegian Consul in Paris, Auguste Pellerin, an accomplished art collector in his own rite.

To Christian, Pellerin (pictured here) was not only a business rival but a highly respected authority within the art world. Upon seeing the Van Gogh in person, Pellerin declared that the painting was indeed a fake.

Christian was distraught. He loved the painting but felt he needed to honor Pellerin’s expertise. In the end, Christian took the painting off the wall, in order to start his collection anew and never speak of the fraud again.

In 1970, Christian died. His art collection was subsequently auctioned off, sold to collectors, or offered to museums. But no one seemed to think much of the painting stashed away in the attic.

Back in 2010, Andy bought a stack of five paintings for $5 at the sale during a visit to Las Vegas with friends. Fields was from Devon, England and loved spending time among garage sales — a very American concept.

Andy was excited about one purchase: a portrait of William Hopalong Cassidy by Gertrude Stein, a prominent American author, poet, playwright, and art collector. He decided it deserved a place of honor.

When Andy decided to reframe another portrait from his stack, he realized what had been in his home the entire time. Behind the painting, a small drawing fell out. It was labeled Rudy Vallee — a famous singer in the 30s. That wasn’t the only thing written on the paper.

In the corner was a signature: Andy Warhol. Could it really be him? “I […] saw a picture looking back at me and recognized the bright red lips of an Andy Warhol,” Andy recalled. That brought him back to an interesting detail of the sale.

When Fields was shopping in Las Vegas, he chatted to person behind the sale, who had an interesting backstory. The man’s aunt had occasionally looked after a famous artist when he was growing up.

His aunt watched Andy Warhol when he was in elementary school. And apparently Andy left behind various scribbles and sketches in his first artistic attempts. It wasn’t out of the question that the seller’s aunt lost track of them.

The style of the sketch would make it significant to collectors. “The experts think it is of historical importance because Warhol did not do pop art properly until he was 23,” Andy said. But this piece dated to when Warhol was 10 years old!

“It’s an incredibly important work. It redefines the works of one of the most famous artists of the last 100 years. It moves the birth of Pop Art back two decades, showing Warhol was already doing that sort of stuff at a far younger age,” Andy said.

Fields doesn’t want to sell the painting. For now, he wants it displayed in a museum so anyone who’s interested has the chance to see the rare work. “It’s much better than putting it in a vault somewhere,” Andy said.

“I want to keep hold of it — I collect art — but I don’t want to sell it for a few years,” the art fan admitted. Of course, before making any moves, he had to verify that the piece was genuine.

There are some detractors who think the work isn’t actually Warhol’s because the signature read “Andy Warhol.” The artist didn’t go by this moniker until he was older — as a child he was still Andy Warhola.

Art collector Andy vehemently denies anything other than the complete authenticity of the work that was completed by pencil on a tattered sheet of paper. When he spoke to art experts, they thought the work must have been signed by the painter much later.

“The way the experts have explained it is that Warhol never used to sign his early work,” Andy said. “When he gave work away many years later it is highly likely he would have been asked to sign it. I am happy to be grilled by any expert in the world.”

One of the experts, Peter Bower, a forensic paper historian and analyst, tested the paper’s age. It’s his opinion that the piece is at least 60 years old. Peter wasn’t the only researcher to examine this find.

Audrey Giles, forensic handwriting and document examiner, looked at the handwriting and determined that it most likely written by Warhol. Audrey’s analysis showed a clear connection between the signature and other authentic samples of his writing.

Other Warhol paintings have been auctioned off for millions of dollars. Soup Can (Tomato), sold for $6.6 million several years earlier. In 2007, Lemon Marilyn went for close to $20 million.

A massive painting that spanned 12 ft, Eight Elvises was purchased for the staggering $100 million. We hope some of that money went to a good cause because that is too much money to responsibly spend on a painting.

We’re not done though. Another Warhol, 200 One Dollar Bills went for $43.7 million and a self-portrait sold for $38.4 million in 2011. So, Fields knew he was sitting on a goldmine. He just hoped he didn’t fall into the same whirlpool of controversy as another thrifty collector.

When she finally decided to get the pesky picture from the frame, her mom, who is a former art teacher and painter, encouraged Martha to get the painting appraised by an art specialist. The frame, she said, had a pretty famous name on it.

On the front of the image, there was a plaque that read “Renoir” — as in French Impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Martha took her mom’s advice and sought out the opinion of Anne Norton Craner, an expert at the Potomack Company Auction House in Virginia.

“She took it out of her plastic bag and it really looked like the real thing,” Anne said. “There was beautiful light. It looked like a painting from 1879.” When Anne examined the painting, there was a label on the back.

Anne used the label to search through Renoir’s catalogue raisonné, or comprehensive works, and got a hit. This is when Anne was almost certain the painting was the real deal — a Pierre-Auguste Renoir original. Still, she needed more evidence.

Martha was absolutely delighted to find out the legitimacy of the painting, because the auction house valued it at $75,000 to $100,000. “I’m just glad I didn’t sell it at one of my yard sales,” she said. But this wasn’t a happy ending for Martha.

While you may guess that the next part of this story involves Martha selling the Renoir and going on a nice vacation, that’s not what happened. Experts started looking into how the painting ended up at a thrift store. The answers were ugly for everyone.

The journey started when Herbert May, a Renoir collector, purchased the painting from the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery in Paris, and he took the it stateside. His wife, Saidie, was a benefactor of the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Saidie and Herbert lent this painting and a few others to the Baltimore museum in 1937. But, if the painting was hung in a museum in the ’30s in Maryland, how did it end up at a Virginia flea market in 2009?

No one put any of this together until 2012, when Martha attempted to set up the auction for Paysage Bords de Seine. A reporter from the Washington Post discovered documentation that proved the artwork was stolen. Then the FBI Art Crime team stepped in and confiscated the image.

Martha wasn’t pleased by this development and started a massive legal battle with the art museum. She thought she had the right to keep the painting because she didn’t know it was stolen. That’s not how it works, Martha.

“All the evidence is on the Baltimore museum’s side. You still have no evidence — no evidence — that this wasn’t stolen,” the judge told Martha’s legal team. And even if Martha could have kept the painting, it had a much lower price tag, according to the FBI.

The FBI appraiser valued Paysage at $22,000 instead. The piece needed some restoration work, and most art collectors weren’t currently interested in Renoir because they considered his style to be “old-fashioned.”

The Baltimore Museum of Art celebrated the painting’s return home as a part of the museum’s centennial party. No one knows what happened to the painting after the ’50s or how it arrived at the flea market.

Like Martha, Teri Horton didn’t like the painting she found thifting. There was, however, something about it that caught her attention. It was 1992, and she had just started her days as a self-proclaimed thrifter. She was stepping into a nightmare similar to Martha’s.

For 20 years, Teri worked as a big-rig driver. She was forced into retirement after a trucking accident sent her to the hospital. Not one to stay idle, Teri began to frequent thrift stores in search of hidden treasures. In fact, she’d already had some success.

Once while scavenging, Teri came across a gorgeous watch that she immediately brought to a pawn shop. It turned out to be a genuine Ebel worth $2,000! This find made Teri all the more cocky. She vowed this would be just the beginning of her incredible discoveries.

The painting at the thrift store was a bit eccentric for Teri’s taste. Still, she thought perhaps one of her friends might appreciate it. The $5 sale was quick and painless. Teri loaded the painting into her car, drove home, and called up her friend. However, there was a small issue.

Her friend loved the painting, but it was too big to fit through her trailer door. Reluctantly, Teri kept the painting and hid it away. After all, it was a giant canvas with a bunch of splatters on it. Who’d want to see that? Years later, Teri decided to have a yard sale.

Teri’s yard sale featured an array of trinkets and antiques she’d collected over the years. None of the offers, however, were meeting her expectations. Teri noticed a woman approach the $5 painting, and she rushed over to make an offer. The woman gave her a rather unexpected response.

The woman insisted that Teri’s offer was too low. When asked why she felt that way, the woman told Teri she was an art teacher with a wealth of art history knowledge. Teri’s painting, the woman claimed, could potentially be worth millions.

Millions? Teri knew she had a good eye, but didn’t think it was that good. Teri asked who might have made the painting. The woman claimed it was likely the work of the famous artist, Jackson Pollock. “Who the **** is Jackson Pollock?” Teri asked.

Whether you appreciate Pollock’s work or not, which Teri did not, anyone can see how unique it is. There appear to be images of faces and shapes woven into the splatters that, upon closer inspection, simply disappear. Teri started to think this painting shouldn’t be sitting in her driveway.

While the prints were being tested, the expert took a look at well-known pieces by Pollock to find similarities. After hours of searching, he came to Teri with an astounding discovery: Although the prints proved undeterminable, both Teri and her son were overjoyed by the expert’s proposition.

The expert believed Teri’s $5 painting was remarkably similar to one of Pollock’s most famous pieces, “No. 5, 1948.” That title just sounded like gibberish to Teri. What she did understand, however, was the price it had sold for: $140 million. Even if Teri’s painting made that, her family would be rich!

Unfortunately, art historians weren’t in agreement. Many were insulted by Teri’s insistence that this was a first draft of Pollock’s world-famous painting. Every museum she brought it to rejected the artwork, claiming there were too many lingering questions. For example, how could the piece have traveled so far without ever being noticed?

Teri lived in California, while Pollock had lived on the other side of the country. Perhaps, Teri suggested, this painting was a throwaway that Pollock gifted to his brother who also lived in California. However, this was unlikely, as Pollock’s brother was aware of his sibling’s fame. Then there was another glaring issue.

The painting lacked a signature, which would have been the key to its identification. Teri couldn’t even backtrack the sales records as the thrift store had shut down years ago. With so many obstacles in her way, Teri had to think bigger.

The painting soon caught the attention of a Saudi art collector. This time, Teri was offered $9 million! To her son’s dismay, Teri denied this gargantuan offer without blinking an eye. She said, “I know what it’s worth and I’m not gonna sell for something less than it should go for.” So, what happened next?