Renoir Painting Found in Flea Market

The landscape by Pierre-Auguste Renoir is headed to the auction block Sept. 29.

The woman paid a whopping $7 for the painting. It is called “Paysage Bords de Seine.” It's a canvas dating back to the late 18-hundreds. It will probably sell for more than $100 thousand dollars!! This gorgeous painting is one of several depictions of the river Seine that the French Impressionist master created.  So you might be asking "how did this end up in West Virginia"? Well, the landscape was once linked to a Baltimore heiress. And after her death, family members did not realize it was genuine! And the best part of the story is that the woman who bought the box of junk didn't even want the painting...she says there was a plastic cow in the box that she really wanted!  She did think the frame was beautiful and she thought she could use it for something else if she cut out the painting. Thankfully she did not. But the painting stayed in the trunk of her car for more than a year, before she took the painting to her mother for advice. Her mom noticed a tag on the painting that said, ‘Renoir, 1841-1919.’  Mom told her to take it to an expert, which she did.