One man’s trash is another man’s treasure? But what if it was always treasure, just treated like trash? Many years ago, a woman bought a $4 painting at a thrift store because its frame appealed to her. Now, the same artwork has been identified as the work of N.C. Wyeth, and may fetch her as much as $250,000. The Delaware woman found the treasure at the Savers thrift store in Manchester, New Hampshire, in 2017. It was stored away until she decided to post the work on the Facebook group “Things Found in Walls.”
Lauren Lewis, an art conservator based in Maine, introduced her to her actual possession – a 1930s N.C. Wyeth was created for the 1939 edition of Helen Hunt Jackson’s 1884 book Ramona. The artwork is expected to sell at Bonhams for as much as $250,000 next month. Expert Kathleen Leland told Delaware Online finding a treasure like the Wyeth painting at a thrift store is far from ordinary.
‘Discoveries such as this are certainly rare,’ she said. ‘Not only because of the limited supply of remarkable works that end up in thrift shops but also because it is difficult for anyone other than an expert in antiques or fine art to be able to recognize the significance of what they have found.’ Who knew the painting hung in the bedroom for years and then in a closet only to be rediscovered in May could make for such a fortunate coincidence?
