You Never Can Tell…

Elizabeth Gibson from New York City, was taking her morning walk on Manhattan’s Upper West Side recently, when she saw a splash of color in a garbage dump. For some strange reason, she inched closer and saw that it was a painting. She liked what she saw, so she took it home. The painting was titled  Tres Personajes {Three People} signed by  Rufino Tamayo, an artist she had never heard of. Later, she researched the name on the Antiques Roadshow website and that’s when she got the shock of her life.

The artist, Rufino Tamayo turned out to be the famous Mexican master painter. The painting that she had retrieved from the dumpster was a stolen work of precious art, which Federal authorities had been trying to trace for years.

The real owners were a couple from Houston had bought the painting in 1977 at Sotheby’s. They had paid $ 55,000 for the artwork. Later, it was stolen from their home and the couple alerted local and federal authorities. The investigation had eventually run cold, and the Feds had all but given up trying to find the painting. And then, just like that, Elizabeth Gibson saw it lying in garbage.

Gibson of course, had to hand over the painting to the Feds but she will receive $ 15,000 as a reward for finding the work..

Sotheby’s with the owner’s permission is planning to put the painting up for auction and experts say that the work of art is in excellent condition and it will fetch about a million dollars.

So how did a million dollar work of art land in a garbage can on a New York City street? Nobody knows. The morons, who threw away a great work of art, and all that money, must be kicking themselves for their ignorance and stupidity.

So, if you are taking a walk or jogging, and you notice something unusual in a garbage dumpster, take it home. Dumpster diving is not uncommon, go for it; it might bring you a fortune. You never can tell.