November 23, 2007

$1 million painting found in rubbish

A rare oil painting by the famous Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo was found with some rubbish by a skip by the road on Manhattan’s Upper West Side by New Yorker Elizabeth Gibson, she originally past it by, but something inspired her to go back and get it.

After a bit of research she learned that the 38” x 51” work of art, and discovered it history and that it was missing, she took it over to Sotheby’s and claimed the $15,000 reward, not a bad morning’s work you may think.

But she was also given a percentage of the sale price, what sort of percentage is confidential, but the painting did sell for $1,049,000 including the charges, so even a small percentage of that amount is pretty good.

Source [Reuters]