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A WOMAN HAS acquired an original Daniel O’Neill painting for just $1 in a thrift store in the US, which has now been estimated to be worth between $4,000 (€3,251) and $10,000 (€8,129).
The painting was set with a price tag of $1.99. However, it was sold during a 50% off sale and the customer purchased it for just $1 (€0.81).
“I knew nothing about the artist, but I knew it was an original oil painting. Plus, I just liked the colours in it, so I thought, well I will just buy it to research the artist,” the buyer, Stacey Muhammad from Phoenix, Arizona said.
Muhammad sent the painting to an online appraisal service, Mearto, that connects people with art and antique experts.
It was here that the painting was attributed to Irish painter Daniel O’Neill.
O’Neill was born in 1920 in Belfast. He was a self-taught artist and began his career painting in his spare time, while working as an electrician.
He later secured a gallery contract and began working as a full-time artist. During his lifetime, O’Neill’s work was mostly exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy. Most recently, some of his paintings appeared in the Irish Museum of Modern Art.
O’Neill is a highly sought after artist and his work frequently sells at auction houses like Adam’s Actions, Whyte’s and Ross’s Auctions.
Muhammad explained how she came to the realisation that O’Neill was a well-known artist.
“After taking [the painting] home and researching the artist I didn’t find much, but I did notice that the artist has had paintings that were sold in auctions, but I didn’t know what they sold for,” she said.
“I don’t necessarily have an eye for rare or expensive art but the painting was interesting to look at, so I took a chance to see if it was worth anything.
After receiving the appraisal, I was excited and surprised by its potential value, so I took it to a local auction house where they were also super excited and they too appraised it and convinced me to let them auction it for me.
This week, the painting was left at the auction house for a clean and is now being prepared for auction in the coming weeks.
Further information about the painting can be found here.
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Gives me a great idea for matching wedding flowers to bridesmaids dresses!!
@Brianog2- dont do that!! The food dye ends up staining dresses! I wanted royal blue flowers for my wedding & as royal blue doesn’t occur naturally in nature, white flowers dyed was an option but my florist freaked out & said no, she’d see too many dresses destroyed by people dying white flowers!
Thanks Emily
A far better way to get kids interested in science would be to involve some sort of explosion.
That’s safe and easy to do with some breadsoda and water.
And vinegar Dermot.
Mentos and coke either
I forgot the vinegar! Doh!
A nice idea is splitting the stems of the flower and putting half in one colour and half in another colour, its a little bit more impressive.
There are thousands of simple experiments to do with small kids, great for getting them interested in science.
I remember doing this experiment in 1st class many moons ago.
My science teacher did this with red dye in a geranium plant so you could see every stem and leaf highlighted in red- fantastic!
Getting my sons ‘hotwires’ and a ‘microscope set’ for xmas so they can experiment with technology and science. At 9 and 8 they should be old enough to do it themselves.
Oh that reminds me I forgot to get a chemistry set…
I put myself in hospital for 10 days with a chemistry set when I was a kid.Magnesium tape is a basterd when mixed with phos. Happy days indeed.Still have the scars.
*Not being sarcastic. Just keep an eye on the kid.Some of those chemicals can burn to the bone.
They are 8 and 9 but yes I will certainly keep an eye on them…
I have done this with kids at school , great experiment!
Oh my god I remember doing this when I was younger – can’t wait to get the kids to do it!
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