Portrait Bought for $60--Sold for $682,000
A bidder paid $682,000 on Saturday for a portrait by 19th Century artist Ammi Phillips--more than doubling the record auction price for an American folk painting.
The seller, Dorothy Jackson, an 88-year-old widow who lives on Cape Cod, bought the painting for $60 more than 50 years ago, said Sarah Paulson, a spokeswoman for Christie’s, the Manhattan auction house where the work was sold.
“Portrait of a Girl in a Red Dress,” painted between 1814 and 1835, attracted “very spirited bidding” at Christie’s, Paulson said.
The previous record auction price for an American folk painting was $297,000 in 1980 for “The Peaceable Kingdom,” by Edward Hicks, Paulson said.
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