Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns, Rob Cowley
- A painting by David Bowie that was purchased for $4.10 is now auctioning for thousands of dollars.
- "DHead XLVI" was discovered in a Canadian landfill by an unidentified seller, CNN reports.
- Bidding has passed $14,000, Rob Cowley, president of Cowley Abbott auction house, told Insider.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
A painting by David Bowie that was discovered in a Canadian landfill and purchased for $4.10 ($5 CAD) is now selling for thousands of dollars at auction.
According to CNN, the portrait titled "DHead XLVI" is part of a series of roughly 47 created by the English singer-songwriter between 1995 and 1997.
The piece is being handled by Toronto-based auction house Cowley Abbott after a member of the public stumbled across the painting at a landfill donation center in Ontario last summer and reached out to them in November, the publication added.
"The painting itself caught their eye," Rob Cowley, the auction house president, told CNN, noting that the seller was not an art expert. "They thought it was an interesting painting before they turned it around and saw the labels on the back."
Cowley told Insider: "The portrait is quite striking. It is a smaller work that depicts the sitter in side profile. The face itself does not have any clear features but possesses light touches of ivory, pink, and teal."
He also noted that while the auction will run until June 24, it has already exceeded expectations on its first day
"The auction is going very well," he said. "Bidding opened yesterday morning at $4,500 CAD ($3,702 USD) and it has now reached $18,100 ($14,781 USD), exceeding our pre-sale estimate of $9,000-$12,000 ($7,389-$9,851 USD) already."
To authenticate the painting, Cowley said they worked with Andy Peters, "an expert in David Bowie's signatures, based in the UK."
Peters runs the website David Bowie Autograph, which documents the changes in the musician's autograph between 1963 and his death in 2016 after battling cancer.
"He was not only able to confirm that the artwork is by David Bowie, but has also recently discovered that the painting was sold through a David Bowie website, where other Bowie works were sold in 2001 or 2002 for £2,300 ($3,247)" Cowley told Insider, referencing a now-extinct art website.
Speaking to CNN, Peters recalled seeing the painting on the website along with other portraits of unknown figures from the musician's life, and knew it must be authentic. "I did not need to see the autograph on the back because I knew, but obviously the signature sealed the deal," he said.
Christie's sold "D-Head IX," another signed portrait from the series, for $27,500 in December 2018, vastly exceeding the estimated value of $3,000-$5,000.
According to Peters' website, the heightened interest in Bowie's autographs, since the musician died aged 69, has resulted in an increase in value by up to 300%.