One lucky shopper stumbled upon a rare Vincent van Gogh painting worth over $15 million.
And it only cost them a cool $50 to snag it.
According to a story from media outlet ArtNews.com, a newly discovered Vincent van Gogh painting worth $15 million was likely found at a dusty Minnesota garage sale — where a buyer paid less than $50 for the world-famous artist’s work, according to a team of New York-based experts.
Previously unknown Vincent van Gogh painting worth $15 million bought at Minnesota garage sale for $50: experts https://t.co/Q6O4cP6Qv6 pic.twitter.com/p8oSU6mcxP
— New York Post (@nypost) January 29, 2025
The previously unknown oil portrait depicts a fisherman smoking a pipe and was created in 1889 — the same year van Gogh painted his masterpiece “The Starry Night” at a psychiatric ward in southern France.
The story noted that the impressionist painting was bought up at a Minnesota garage sale by an anonymous antiques collector for less than $50 several years ago and is now believed to be worth a whopping $15 million, according to a team of roughly 20 experts.
“[I was] struck by what I saw,” Maxwell Anderson, a former Metropolitan Museum of Art curator, told The Wall Street Journal.
To determine if it was authentic, he teamed up with a group of conservators, scientists and historians, who now believe the work was made by the troubled genius, the paper reported.
The experts also matched red pigment in the painting to a brand of paint used in southern France in the late 19th century.
The painting still needs to be given a thumbs up by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam before it’s officially recognized as authentic.
While authenticating the art, a team of roughly 20 experts — from fields including chemistry, art and patent law — joined forces for the New York-based art research firm LMI Group, which bought the painting from the anonymous antiques collector in 2019.