$30 Estate-Sale Find Is a Lost Abercrombie Painting for Sale
A painting bought for US$30 at an estate sale in Michigan this summer will be offered at Freeman's on 1 October with an estimate, the pre-sale price range published by the auction house, of US$150,000 to US$250,000.
It had not been seen for 75 years.
The work is Alderman Merriam's Shells, dated 1951, by American artist Gertrude Abercrombie, who lived from 1909 to 1977, according to Freeman's. The auction house reported the rediscovery on 11 September, and ARTnews followed with its own report on 14 September.
The buyer found the painting at a summer estate sale, a sale of household belongings, in Michigan. Freeman's said the buyer paid US$30. The house then published an account of the painting's conservation on 4 September, tracing its path from discovery to the saleroom.
Abercrombie painted small, spare scenes that often mixed everyday objects with dream-like spaces. Alderman Merriam's Shells belongs to that part of her work, and its long absence from public view is part of why the October sale has drawn attention.
That attention has been building elsewhere. The exhibition Gertrude Abercrombie: The Whole World Is a Mystery brings together nearly 80 paintings from major museums and private collections, according to Newcity. Its stop at the Milwaukee Art Museum in Milwaukee was described as the largest show of her work ever organised.
There is recent market history too. A work by Abercrombie sold at Freeman's | Hindman set a new world auction record, the highest price yet paid for the artist at auction, in September 2024, as reported by Chicago Gallery News.
What makes this stand out is the paperwork trail. For anyone new to auctions, an estimate is not a sale price. It is the range the house advertises before bidding starts. Whether Alderman Merriam's Shells reaches its US$150,000 to US$250,000 range will be decided in the room on 1 October.
