A Stranger Walked Into My Gallery — And Claimed a Painting

It was a rainy Thursday afternoon when an elderly woman stepped into my Seattle art gallery, soaked and quiet. The regular visitors frowned, but something about her stopped me from turning her away. She wandered slowly through the paintings until she froze before a sunrise cityscape. Her voice trembled as she whispered, “That’s mine.” At first, no one believed her—until she pointed to the faint initials in the corner: M.L.

Her name was Marla Lavigne, once a promising artist whose life had fallen apart after a tragic fire years earlier. She’d lost her husband, her studio, and her work. The painting she claimed had been sold through an estate sale, its creator long forgotten. I decided to dig deeper, and with the help of my assistant, we traced every record we could find. In an old gallery brochure from 1990, we discovered her name beneath the very painting now hanging on my wall — proof that her story was true.

Read Part 2