Amazing stories about how the world's masterpieces were bought for a song

In this article you will find incredible stories about people who are incredibly lucky to buy priceless works of art for a mere penny.

In 2009, an American woman bought an oil painting at an ordinary flea market in Virginia. The purchase cost her only $ 7. According to the woman, she was more interested not in the canvas itself, but in the beautiful frame. On her mother's advice, she took the purchase to the auction house. Experts conducted an expert examination and found out that this is the original of the impressionist Auguste Renoir "Landscape on the banks of the Seine". The cost of the painting was estimated at $ 75,000.

To the girl's disappointment, it turned out that the painting was once stolen from the museum, so it would be illegal to resell it. This Impressionist landscape came to the United States in 1926 thanks to the collector Herbert May. Then the painting was exhibited at the Baltimore Museum of Art, where it was stolen in 1951. As a result, 5 years after the discovery at the flea market, in 2014 the painting was returned to the museum.

During his lifetime, Paul Gauguin, one of the classics of post-impressionism, was unknown to anyone. The artist could barely make ends meet. In a letter to friends, he wrote that he had no money even for a piece of bread, so he had to eat only water and fruit, since there was plenty of fruit in the tropics, where he lived.

Paul Gauguin's painting "When is the wedding?" was written by him in 1892 while living in Tahiti. At the beginning of the last century, it was bought for a song by the collector Rudolf Steffi Lin. For half a century, it was owned by his family, and was recently sold to the Qatari state organization Qatar Museums for about $ 300 million. Thus, this painting became the most expensive work of art ever sold in the world.

An American merchant who bought a gold piece at an antique fair in the Midwest of the United States planned to melt it down for scrap until he found out that his find was a rare Faberge egg, which was considered lost.

The entrepreneur bought the product for 14 thousand dollars and intended to quickly resell it a little more expensive, because inside there was a watch from Vacheron Constantin. But no one was interested in the egg. The businessman had already decided to melt it down, but then in desperation he typed in a search query on the web: "egg", "Vacheron Constantin" (the inscription on the clock) - and soon came across an article in the British edition of The Telegraph, which was about Faberge eggs. After seeing a photo in the article with a piece of jewelry that looked exactly like his purchase, the merchant rushed on the first plane to London to meet with the director of the Wartski antique gallery in London, Kieran McCarthy. 

The egg was identified as one of the lost Imperial Easter Eggs designed by Carl Faberge. It was one of Faberge's first creations: Alexander III gave it to his wife Maria Feodorovna for Easter in 1887. During the October Revolution, the jewelry fell into the hands of the Bolsheviks, and its trace is lost.

It is rumored that the egg was sold for $ 33 million to a private collector, and the owner of the lucky find at the flea market preferred to remain anonymous. Perhaps it is for the best: it is not for nothing that they say that happiness loves silence.

After the revolution, the Bolsheviks massively sold the jewels of the Imperial House abroad for a song. In the late 20s, they sold crown diamonds in the literal sense of kilograms. 

Russian Russian Beauty diamond tiara with pearl pendants, which Nicholas I personally ordered in 1841 for his wife Alexandra Feodorovna, went under the hammer in 1927 for only 310 pounds sterling. At the same time, this unique jewelry made of platinum included 1,535 old-cut diamonds, 25 large teardrop-shaped pearls, and its real value, of course, was millions.

In 1989, a man bought a framed U.S. Declaration of Independence for just $ 4. Buying for that price at a flea market in Pennsylvania, of course, implied that it was a copy of a historical document. However, in the end it turned out that it was a genuine declaration.

On the historic night of July 4, 1776, 200 copies of the declaration were issued, of which only 25 have survived to this day. Bought at a flea market, the original copy went under the hammer at Sotheby's in 1990 for $ 2.45 million.