Painting Bought at Goodwill for $9.99 Actually Worth $15K

Tags: Auctions, Contemporary Art, Russian Art, Sleeper, Sotheby's

On April 28, a woman and her husband were en route to an art fair in Oak Ridge, N.C. when they passed by a Goodwill. Owing to the surprising chill in the air, the woman, Beth Feeback, popped in to grab an extra layer; she came out with two paintings, purchased for $9.99 each.

Unbeknownst to Feeback, one of the paintings was worth quite more than she paid for it.

“Vertical Diamond” was painted by notable 20th century Russian artist Ilya Bolotowsky and in a roundabout way, ended up serendipitously in that North Carolina Goodwill and ultimately, Feeback’s home.

On more than one occasion, she considered painting over it:

“I thought they would be awesome canvases. They were $9.99 a piece and I just thought they would be great to just draw on them and paint over them because I didn’t like them as paintings. They were really ‘70s kind of looking, but not ‘70s in that fun, kitschy way, ‘70s in a different way that I don’t really enjoy, so I was like, ‘I’m going to paint big cat heads or whatever,’”

Encouraged by friends, who noticed a Weatherspoon Art Gallery sticker on its back, she reached out to Sotheby’s, who immediately requested she ship the painting to their New York location. She and her husband sent it via UPS with an insurance value of $20,000.

As it turns out, her valuation was spot-on: Sotheby’s will sell the canvas at auction on September 21 with an estimate of $15,000 – 20,000.

Painting Bought for $9.99 at Goodwill Valued at $15k via Yahoo! News

Photo courtesy of ABC News