Investing in a Krieghoff Painting
How 50p Spent on Art Forty Years Ago Made £29,000 at Auction Today
Small change can crowd a purse and weigh down a trouser pocket. “And from small acorns… grow big trees” as the saying goes. An extraordinary fine art find was reported earlier this month by BBC News (13 May 2008) that 40 years ago, a man – who wished to remain anonymous – passed a market stall in the Barrowlands in Glasgow Scotland, saw a picture he liked and paid “ten bob” or 50 pence for it.
The appealing artwork, purchased from a modest market stall, was the painting Chopping Logs Outside a Snow Covered Cabin, signed by Canadian artist Cornelius David Krieghoff (19 June 1815 to 8 March 1872).
The Barrowlands Glasgow Scotland
Located in the East End of Glasgow, Glasgow Barrowland comprises the Glasgow Barrowland Ballroom and the Barrowland Market or "The Barras".
The well established market at Glasgow Barrowland has always offered customers value for money. While a 50p fine artwork can not be guaranteed on a weekend visit to The Barras, modest purchases can still be made from today’s stalls of the Glasgow Barrowland market traders, The Barras is open, every weekend, on Saturday and Sunday 10.00am until 5.00pm. The Market is a 15 minutes walk from George Square in Glasgow and 5 minutes from the public parkland Glasgow Green.
Cornelius David Krieghoff
Dutch-born Cornelius David Krieghoff emigrated to North America in about 1835. Krieghoff was a prolific painter who is believed to have completed an oil painting every fortnight for thirty year. Considered by many as Canada’s best known nineteenth-century artists, readily available prints have popularised around the world many of Cornelius David Krieghoff’s paintings including:
- Habitant Farm
- Owl’s Head and Skinners Cover
- Going to Town Market
- Ottawa Timber at Quebec
- Playtime at the Village School
- Sleigh Race Across the Ice
- Crossing the St. Lawrence from Levis to Quebec on a Sleigh
- Indians transporting furs through the Canadian wilderness
- Sleigh Race on the St Lawrence at Quebec
Dennis R. Reid, a Member of the Order of Canada and Chief Curator of the Art Gallery of Ontario, author and editor of Krieghoff: Images of Canada (Douglas & McIntyre, 1999) writes about “Krieghoff as a major Canadian cultural figure in the years leading up to Confederation, showing his work to be as much shaped by his new homeland as his images indelibly shaped future public perception of his time and place”.
Krieghoff: Images of Canada includes all the 152 works exhibited in the first retrospective of Krieghoff held nearly a decade ago, November 1999 to March 2000, in Toronto, supported by the Museum Assistance Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage and sponsored by the American Express Foundation.
Return on a Krieghoff Painting Investment
A signed Cornelius David Krieghoff may be expected by fine art valuers to invite bids in excess of $60 thousand US. Chopping Logs Outside a Snow Covered Log Cabin in the Fine Paintings Auction of Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh Scotland stated an estimate of between $59,159 and $98,599 US in the Auction catalogue.
At this morning's fine paintings sale, the oil painting by Cornelius David Krieghoff, bought for 50p from a Glasgow Barrowland market trader’s stall, was sold for £29,000 or around $56,400 CAD. Even with a 40-year wait, that level of return on fine art is extraordinary.
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