Gaye Horrell, 76, was talked into giving up the landscape in 1967. Neither she nor the owners knew it was by the famous Dutch artist Van Gogh. The 1885 work was later identified as Peasant Woman in Front of a Farmhouse. It was sold last month for an unknown sum but it was said that the price was between £12 million and £13 million.
Gaye recalled how the art could have been hers when her relative asked if she wanted any item from their Staffordshire farmhouse before they held a sale. She asked for the picture which had been given to the family in 1929 as payment for farm supplies.
Gaye said, “The painting looked old, very dirty and had a hole in it, but I still liked it. They persuaded me it wasn’t worth having and not to bother with it.” She added, “Oh dear, how naive of me. Of course, in those days I couldn’t argue with them and ended up with a handbell. I learnt my lesson the hard way.”
The painting was sold in 1967 for £4 to a local auction house. It was next seen in a junk shop in North London where a buyer, who paid £45, found the faint signature “Vincent” on it. Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum made sure it was an original in 1970. The painting changed hands several times before the latest sale at the European Fine Art Fair in Holland.
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