It’s Lucky 13th as Buyer Gets Lost Krieghoff
It’s Lucky 13th as Buyer Gets Lost Krieghoff
TORONTO STAR
14 June, 1972
A long lost painting by noted Canadian artist Cornelius Krieghoff bought by a New Zealand coal miner last year for $200, was sold at auction here last night for $27,000. The buyer, Walter Klinkhoff of Montreal, said delightedly after the auction that the 13th has always been his lucky day. The painting, called the "Royal Mail Crossing the Ice From Quebec to Levis", and dated 1859, was sold by Simpsons Arcadian Court by Sotheby's of Canada on behalf of the miner who found it in an Australian antique shop without realizing its value. After Sotheby’s takes its 12 ½ per cent commission the unidentified miner should make about $24,000 on the painting that he bought "simply because he liked it", Sotheby’s of Canada vice-president Geoffrey Joyner said after the auction.
Klinkhoff who runs a commercial gallery of the same name in Montreal, bought 10 paintings altogether including Group of Seven painter A.Y. Jackson’s "Late Winter, St. Urbain" for $15,000. Klinkhoff who specializes in Canadian paintings said he would have been willing to go up to $36,000 for the Krieghoff. I really wanted this picture he said. " I feel very lucky to have got it for so little" He said "buying art is something like a hunting expedition – sometimes you lose, sometimes you win. The 13th has always been my lucky day and it is today. Joyner said the painting was valued at between $20,000 and $25,000, but the auctioneers had hoped it would bring $30,000 to break the record for a Canadian painting. A capacity crowd of more than 800 craned their necks under the chandeliers of the Arcadian Court to see the bidding for the painting as auctioneer John Marion, president of Sotheby’s New York, upped the bids $1,000 at a time, beginning with $5,000. Sotheby’s sold 137 items, including 11 pieces of Eskimo sculpture, for a total of $217,000.
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