John Constable’s painting of an 19th-century English landscape was sold for $5.2 million at a Sotheby’s auction in New York. This “Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows” painting was purchased for just $5,212 in 2013, meaning the seller has turned close to a 100,000 percent profit in two years. That price was well above Christie’s auction house estimated value of $760 to $1,200. The discrepancy in the value of this painting is due to a difference of opinion by art experts at the rival auction houses.
Christie’s analyzed the painting in 2013 and declared that it was the work of a follower of John Constable – not a creation of the famed English Romantic landscape artist himself.
But Sotheby’s claimed the canvas is a preparatory oil sketch for an 1830 work that’s owned by the Tate in London.
However, this art work fetched $5.2 million, and neither the seller or buyer were identified. It was part of an Old Masters paintings auction, with Sotheby’s selling works totaling $57.1 million, surpassing its low estimate of $54 million.
