Painting thought to be ‘worthless’ sold for millions

A man in Sweden was downsizing. There was no room in his new place for the large canvas that had hung on his wall for over a decade, so he included it in the boxes sent to a small Stockholm auction house.

He attached a note: "Will you accept these things? Sell what you can and leave the rest to the Red Cross!"

He had no idea that the painting his wife left him when she passed away in 2002 was a Russian masterpiece.

"The Battle of Bomarsund" by Ivan Aivazovsky was painted in 1858. The "worthless" painting was priceless.

When the auction house saw that there was more buzz about the painting — which had a starting price of about $1,500 — than expected, the head of the house contacted Uppsala Auction House for advice.

"When we got the email we almost exploded with excitement. We realized, of course, that if this was a genuine Aivazovsky it would be a painting worth millions," auctioneer Knut Knutson of Uppsala Auction House told The Local.

Specialists authenticated the work as a genuine Aivazovsky.

Knutson told the owner that the price would be set higher than originally thought, as the painting was by a great Russian artist. The owner had no idea that "higher" meant "starting at 5 million kroner ($930,000)."

"It was one of those moments when you wish you had a camera and could film what happened. He stood up, and then sat back down again saying 'You are jesting, you can't really mean that,' " Knutson said.

The painting sold for 7.6 million kroner ($1.4 million).

The owner "is very happy and completely overwhelmed, but he won't quite believe it until he can see the money in his account," Knutson said.

(Photo credit: Uppsala Auktionskammare)