$50 Hamptons barn find turns into C$290k: Lost 1912 Emily Carr sells big

According to the report, the painting's provenance offered another intriguing chapter. It is believed to have been given by Carr to her friends Nell Cozier and her husband during the 1930s.

A dusty barn sale in the Hamptons is not where most people expect to encounter a significant work of Canadian art. Yet that is exactly where New York-based art dealer Allen Treibitz found a painting that would eventually sell for hundreds of thousands of Canadian dollars.

Bought for just $50, the canvas was later authenticated as a 1912 work by Emily Carr, one of Canada's most celebrated artists. The discovery turned an overlooked painting into one of the more remarkable bargain finds to reach the auction market in 2024, states Canadian Press report.

An unexpected find in the Hamptons

Treibitz came across the signed canvas while browsing a barn sale in the Hamptons. At the time, he was not particularly familiar with Carr or the significance of her work, but something about the painting stood out among the objects surrounding it.

After taking the painting home, he began researching it online and eventually contacted Heffel Fine Art Auction House in Vancouver. Specialists examined the work and determined that it was an authentic Emily Carr painting.The discovery was eventually identified as Masset, Q.C.I., an oil on canvas measuring approximately 41 by 33 centimetres, adds the online report.

A glimpse of Haida Gwaii

Painted in 1912, Masset, Q.C.I. depicts an Indigenous memorial post topped with a carved grizzly bear in Masset, a village on British Columbia's Haida Gwaii archipelago, historically known as the Queen Charlotte Islands.

The work dates from an important period in Carr's career, when she was documenting landscapes and Indigenous subjects in British Columbia. Born in Victoria to British immigrant parents, Carr later became closely associated with the Canadian art movement surrounding the Group of Seven.

The painting also carried clues to its earlier history. An inscription on the reverse refers to an address on Boulevard Montparnasse in Paris, believed to connect to Carr's period of study in France around 1910 and 1911.

From a barn to the auction block

According to the report, the painting's provenance offered another intriguing chapter. It is believed to have been given by Carr to her friends Nell Cozier and her husband during the 1930s. The couple, originally from Victoria, later moved to the Hamptons to work on a large estate, where the painting apparently remained in a barn for decades. When Heffel announced the work for its November 20, 2024 Toronto auction, the auction house placed an estimate of C$100,000 to C$200,000 on it.

Competitive bidding pushed the hammer price to C$290,000, comfortably above the high estimate. Heffel's records put the final price, including fees, at C$349,250, the report mentions.Image Courtesy: People