That $200 flea market painting I almost didn't buy

Saw a landscape oil painting at a flea market in Tulsa for $200. The guy said it was from an estate sale, nothing special, just some old barn scene. I walked past it three times before I grabbed it because the frame was nice. Got it home and noticed the back had a label with a name and a zip code from a town that flooded in 2005. Looked it up and the artist had died in that flood, and her stuff got scattered. The barn in the painting matched the one in her obituary photo from the local paper. Now it hangs in my hallway and I keep thinking about how that painting lost its home twice before ending up with me. Has anyone else bought something random that turned out to have a whole backstory?

2 comments

2 Comments

tessa_hill8614d ago

That's even heavier than mine. My painting just had a sad story attached, your buddy found a dead guy's last photo of his cat. Man's last act on earth was taking a selfie with his cat. I can't decide if that's heartbreaking or the most practical thing ever. At least my painting's artist probably didn't know she was making something that would outlive her by a decade and end up on a stranger's wall. Now I'm gonna stare at my barn scene tonight and wonder if she had a cat too.

wright.michael14d ago

Nah but my buddy found a beat up old camera at a thrift store for like 15 bucks. Turned out it still had a roll of film inside from like 2002 and he got it developed. It was just a bunch of pictures of some dude's cat and a backyard barbecue but the weird part was the last photo was a selfie of the original owner with a date stamp from the day before he died in a car wreck. Creepy and sad all at once.