Emily Carr painting bought in New York for $50 could fetch $200K at auction

A recently rediscovered Emily Carr painting is now being toured across Canada.

The 1912 piece, titled Masset Q.C.I. shows a memorial post, capped with a carved grizzly bear, that stood in the village of Masset on Haida Gwaii.

Earlier this year the painting was spotted by a New York-based art dealer hanging in a barn in the Hamptons.

He bought the painting for $50.

“You could just tell that painting had something special about it besides the fact that it was so legibly signed, which is not often the case with most art that you see,” Allen Treibitz, who bought the painting, told Global News.

“So that helped a little, but it definitely had a look and it was definitely very interesting.”

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The painting will go up for auction at the Heffel Gallery, along with four other of Carr’s works, next month in Toronto.

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The auction house believes Carr gifted the painting to a friend who lived in Victoria before moving to New York.

It is estimated it could fetch between $100,000 and $200,000.

“I’ve found some interesting things in my lifetime,” Treibitz said.

“This is the most significant find I’ve ever had.”

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Carr was born in B.C. in 1871 and her work is world-renowned for its focus on First Nations art and lifestyle and B.C. landscapes.

One of her paintings, called The Crazy Stair (The Crooked Staircase), sold for $3.39 million in 2013.

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