A Valuable Art Find

One of my favorite things to thrift are pieces of art. It’s a surefire way to guarantee my home is unlike anyone else’s if I can fill the walls and shelves with unique paintings and prints. This week, I stumbled on a valuable art find on one of our thrift outings.

Vintage canvas art is a favorite of mine to collect. I love the range of colors and strokes that different artists utilize. And I’m especially keen on finding pieces of art that somehow “speak” to me or our life here at the cottage.

On this particular Friday at the thrift, I dug through a few layers of paintings and uncovered a painting of a bird.

I was pretty sure the bird was an ibis. The ibis is a very common wading bird here in Florida, and being that we live on a lake, we see quite a few ibises throughout the year.

Immediately, I pictured it joining the top of my armoire, which already features an unframed Florida canvas I picked up off eBay a few months ago. Whether my newest painting find was painted in Florida or elsewhere, I knew it belonged in my Old Florida formal living room.

As I was looking it over and deciding whether it was worth it to pay the $15 price tag, which is sort of steep by my thrifted art standards, I noticed a signature in the lower left corner. “Thomas Pell.”

Thankfully, I was in a store with pretty decent service, so I performed a quick Google search and nearly fell over when the results came back.

Almost every painting listed was priced at $500 more more; most auctions had quite a few watchers, so he clearly has a fan base. Suddenly, that $15 price tag seemed pretty reasonable.

I threw it in the cart and decided that even if I decide not to sell it, the fact that it fits perfectly on my armoire made the purchase more than worth it.

P.S. This is the second pretty valuable art piece we’ve found at that exact same thrift store. Maybe I missed my calling as a art curator!