DUTCH MASTER DISASTER
Pensioner turned down in-laws’ gift of Van Gogh that’s worth £13m – for a £1 brass bell
if she’d stuck to the maxim ‘i don’t know much about art, but i know what i like’ Gaye Horrell would be a millionaire by now
She was talked out of taking a free painting – even though she liked it – that has just been sold for up to £13million – choosing a handbell worth £1 instead.
Now the pensioner is kicking herself after the unidentified landscape she rejected was found to be a lost Vincent Van Gogh.
Mrs Horrell, 76, says she was offered Peasant Woman in front Of A farmhouse for nothing, but instead picked the brass bell.
The painting was sold by a dealer last month at the Maastricht Tefaf art fair in the Netherlands. Although the price paid by the unnamed buyer has not been disclosed, it is estimated to be £10million to £13million.
Mrs Horrell was living in Stafford in 1967 when Charles and Molly Holme, the parents of her then husband, Tim, asked if she wanted anything from their farmhouse before they sold it and some of the contents. They offered her the painting, which had been given to the family in 1929 as payment for farm supplies – but had no idea the artist was Van Gogh. Against her better judgment, Mrs Horrell, who now lives in the Cotswolds, opted to take the bell. following the auction, she said: ‘i was told to choose something for myself. i saw the picture and immediately liked it. The painting looked old, very dirty and uncared for, and it had a hole in it. They persuaded me it was not worth having and not to bother. ‘Oh dear, how very naive of me! Of course, in those days i couldn’t argue with them and ended up with a brass handbell. i learnt my lesson the hard way. ‘i have seen various articles about its life after the sale, but there was not a lot i could do.’ The artwork was sold soon after for £4 by an auctioneer who specialised in sheep and cattle, and was then bought in a north London junk shop for £45 by an italian who spotted the faint signature ‘Vincent’ and guessed it might be a masterpiece. Experts confirmed his hunch, identifying it as an early work by Van Gogh, painted in the Netherlands in July 1885, when he was 32, before he moved to france and created his most famous works.
it sold for almost £100,000 in 1970, then went to an American collector for £1.5million in 2001.
Van Gogh expert Martin Bailey, of The Art Newspaper, said: ‘it is quite an impressive painting, so i can see why Gaye Horrell was tempted.
‘it’s just a pity that she didn’t spot the “Vincent” signature and make the connection!’
Experts told the Mail that Mrs Horrell’s claims were ‘plausible’, although they said it was impossible to be certain the painting she was offered was exactly the one that has just been auctioned.
The artwork was finished at around the time Van Gogh created a series known as his ‘peasant character studies’, which he completed between 1881 and 1885.
in the same year, while living in the Dutch town of Nuenen with his parents, he painted his first major work, The Potato Eaters.
He moved to france in 1886 and developed a fresh approach, utilising bright colours. But unsuccessful and in poor mental health, he killed himself just five years after he’d painted Peasant Woman in front Of A farmhouse.
‘Oh dear, how very naive of me!’