$40,000 Painting dropped off at Goodwill Store

A painting dropped off at a Goodwill store turned out to be a work by a French Impressionist. And now, thanks to the sharp eye of a store employee, the charitable organization is $40,000 richer.The painting of a Parisian street scene left at the store in March along with the daily donations of pots, pans, old clock radios and other items turned out to be a work by Edouard-Leon Cortes.

The painting was sold recently for $40,600 at an auction.

“It could have very easily ended up put in a pile, marked for $20,” Ursula Villar, marketing and development director for Goodwill Industries of the Chesapeake Inc., toldThe Baltimore Sun.

The manager of the Goodwill store told The Sun that store employees pulled the item from that day’s donations, suspecting the item might be worth something.  The painting was taken to the Goodwill Industries regional headquarters in Baltimore, where local art experts were invited to examine it.

If the owner of the painting wants the money, he or she may be out of luck. Goodwill said it doesn’t keep track of donors.  Donations, meanwhile, are gifts that are considered legal and final transactions.

 

 

 

Cortes, who died in 1969, was best known for his Paris street scenes.

  

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