In 2016, an antiques collector purchased an oil painting of a fisherman for just $50 at a garage sale in Minnesota. Now experts believe the portrait may be a long-lost piece by Vincent van Gogh worth $15 million, according to ARTnews.
Titled Elimar and dated 1889, the thick impasto oil painting depicts a fisherman with a white beard, holding a pipe in his mouth, and wearing a round brown hat. The man appears to be sitting in the sand near the ocean as he repairs his net. The title of the painting is presumed to be the fisherman’s name, ARTnews reports.
It’s believed that van Gogh painted Elimar during his stay at Saint-Paul psychiatric hospital in Southern France, where he resided from May 1889 to May 1890. ARTnews reports that this is where he created 150 paintings, including masterpieces like Almond Blossom (1890), Irises (1889), and The Starry Night (1889).
New York-based art research firm LMI Group International purchased the painting from the anonymous antiques collector in 2019 for an undisclosed sum. The firm put together a team of experts consisting of chemists, curators, and patent lawyers to investigate the work’s authenticity and determined that it could be worth at least $15 million.
LMI Group International recently published a 458-page report detailing the research team’s findings. According to the report, the painting has an egg-white finish, which van Gogh was known to have used in his work. The team also found that Elimar‘s pigments and fibers match those produced during van Gogh’s time.
“The analysis conducted on this distinctive painting provides fresh insight into the oeuvre of van Gogh, particularly as it relates to his practice of reinterpreting works by other artists,” Maxwell L. Anderson, chief operating officer of LMI Group, said in a statement to ARTnews. “This moving likeness embodies van Gogh’s recurring theme of redemption, a concept frequently discussed in his letters and art. Through Elimar, van Gogh creates a form of spiritual self-portrait, allowing viewers to see the painter as he wished to be remembered.”
The painting will have to be attributed by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam before being declared an authentic van Gogh. Once given the stamp of approval, Elimar could be worth an estimated $15 million.
