US$30 estate-sale painting sells for US$1.3m in New York
A painting bought for US$30 at an estate sale in Michigan sold for US$1.3 million at Freeman's in New York on 1 October.
The work is Alderman Merriam's Shells, a 1951 painting by Gertrude Abercrombie. That price set a new world auction record for the artist, according to The Art Newspaper. It beat the presale guide by a wide margin. It turned a summer bargain into autumn news.
The sale closed Freeman's online Post-War & Contemporary Art auction, organised as a timed sale ending 1 October. The painting was offered as Lot 3, the third number in the sale order, with a presale estimate of US$150,000 to US$250,000, Freeman's said.
Estimates are the auction house's published guide. They are not a cap. Bidding can stop below them or run past them. Here it ran far past.
The US$1.3 million figure is the price including premium, the extra fees added to the winning bid. Freeman's notes that the hammer price, the bid the auctioneer closes on, does not include the buyer's premium, taxes or shipping. That distinction matters. The number most buyers see first is the total with fees.
The painting is small. It measures just 8 inches by 11 inches. Its recent history started with a summer estate sale in Michigan, where a buyer paid US$30 for it. Research later linked it to Dr John Reynolds of Kalamazoo, Michigan, who had received the painting from Abercrombie in exchange for surgical services.
That exchange gave the work a clear back story. Provenance, the documented chain of ownership, often helps explain a surprise at auction. Here the trail ran from the artist to Reynolds, then through time to the Michigan sale. A buyer could bid with confidence.
The result passed the artist's previous auction high. That was US$1 million for Message for Mercy, a 1950 painting sold at Sotheby's in New York. The new sale added about US$300,000 to that mark.
The turnaround was quick. The Michigan buy happened in the summer. The New York sale closed on 1 October. That is a gap of weeks, not years.
What makes this stand out is the chain of hands. A private medical arrangement put the work in Michigan. Decades later it sat unrecognised at an estate sale. Then a timed online auction put it in front of bidders across the country. One small panel. Three very different price tags.
