A painting by N.C. Wyeth, the prolific Maine artist and patriarch of the famous Wyeth family of painters, that was purchased for $4 in a thrift shop in New Hampshire, has sold for $191,000 at Bonhams Skinner “American Art” event Sept. 19.
The painting, entitled Ramona, was found by a woman in 2017 while she was looking for old picture frames at a Savers secondhand shop.
Courtesy Bonhams Skinner
After hanging the painting in her bedroom for several years, the thrift shop hunter eventually stored the Wyeth in a closet in her home and forgot about it. While doing spring cleaning last May, the woman pulled out the painting and posted images of it online. With the help of Facebook sleuths, the woman was able to identify the work as a rare example by Wyeth.
Bonhams’ was able to confirm that the thrift shop find is one of four possible frontispiece designs drawn by Wyeth for a 1939 edition of Helen Hunt Jackson’s novel Ramona, which tells the life story of a fictional girl of mixed Scottish and Native American heritage who was orphaned shortly after the Mexican-American War ended in 1848.
It is not known how the painting ended up in New Hampshire thrift shop. The painting’s hammer price of $191,000 (including buyer’s premium), comfortably met its presale estimate of between $150,000 and $250,000.
The auction record for any member of the Wyeth family was set last year during the sale of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s collection at Christie’s New York, where Andrew Wyeth’s 1980 painting “Day Dream” sold for over $23.2 million, more than seven times the high estimate of $3 million.
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