1890) by Martin Johnson HeadePhoto credit: https://www.nga.gov/ Giant Magnolias on a Blue Velvet Cloth (c.
Christie’s later sold the paintings at auction for $1,072,000. After deducting the buyer’s premium and commission, the Rices received $911,780. They paid $337,000 in income taxes on the profit in 1997, bought a home, created a family trust, and used part of the money for living expenses. What had begun as an ordinary $60 estate sale purchase had become a life changing windfall, as per Justia U.S. Magnolia Blossoms on Blue Velvet is an oil on canvas measuring 15 by 24 inches and signed “M.J. The auction house describes it as one of Heade’s extraordinary floral still lifes, painted around 1890 after the artist moved to St.
Following their usual practice, the Rices sent photographs of the paintings to Christie’s in New York to see whether they might be Heade’s work. Christie’s authenticated both paintings, Magnolia Blossoms on Blue Velvet and Cherokee Roses, as genuine works by Heade. The auction house then offered to sell them on consignment. Law. Heade” in the lower right. Christie’s records trace its ownership through the Sleeth family of Belleville, New Jersey and Tucson, Arizona, before it passed by bequest to Robert G. Nelson and then to Martha Campbell Nelson, whose estate sold it. Augustine, Florida. The appellate court characterized this as conscious ignorance. By choosing not to hire a qualified fine art appraiser, the estate knowingly proceeded despite its limited knowledge. The court also noted that the estate had ample opportunity to discover what it was selling and failed to do so, acting only after learning the paintings’ worth through the Rices’ own efforts. In the court’s view, the estate was a victim of its own folly, making it reasonable to allocate the burden of the mistake to the estate.
Because the parties had not negotiated the price, it also found that the contract was not unconscionable. The trial court found that although both parties had been mistaken about the paintings’ value, the estate bore the risk of that mistake. The estate had set the price, and Rice had simply paid it. The court denied the estate’s motion for summary judgment, granted the Rices’ cross motion, and later denied the estate’s request for a new trial.
In 1996, Carl Rice attended an Arizona estate sale, spotted two framed oil paintings priced at $30 each, and paid the $60 asking price without expecting anything extraordinary. The paintings were later authenticated as works by Martin Johnson Heade, a celebrated 19th century American painter, and sold at Christie’s for a combined $1.072 million. He paid the estate’s asking price of $60 for two oil paintings. Court records note that he had never made more than $55 on a single piece and had previously purchased works that turned out to be frauds, forgeries, or pieces by lesser known artists.
He liked the subject matter of one painting and the frame of the other, but assumed that paintings sold so cheaply by a professionally managed estate could not be original works by a major artist. That assumption proved spectacularly wrong. The story did not end with the auction. Martha Nelson’s estate, whose personal representatives had organised the sale, later sued Rice and his wife Anne in an effort to undo the transaction. The estate argued that both sides had made a mutual mistake about the paintings’ value and that enforcing the sale would be unconscionable. But the Arizona Court of Appeals disagreed, affirming the lower court’s decision and leaving the Rices with the proceeds. The case remains a striking example of how estate sales can hide extraordinary value, and of how the law treats a bargain made in good faith. Carl Rice responded to a newspaper advertisement and attended the public sale. he was not a trained or sophisticated collector Although he had bought and sold some art before.