Michigan collector paid $30 for painting; it later sold for record $1.35 million

A painting bought for just $30 at a Michigan estate sale has sold for $1,352,600 at auction in New York, after experts identified it as a long-lost 1951 work by Chicago Surrealist Gertrude Abercrombie. The painting, Alderman Merriam's Shells, had been missing from public view for about 75 years before it resurfaced this summer. It ultimately set a new world auction record for Abercrombie at Freeman's Post-War & Contemporary Art sale on October 1.The result was dramatically higher than the painting's presale estimate of $150,000 to $250,000. It opened at $80,000, with five telephone bidders and several online bidders competing for the work. Freeman's said the final $1,352,600 figure includes the buyer's premium; the hammer price was $1.06 million.