Artnet_ You might not think of online auctioneer eBay when you are shopping for a work by René Magritte, but that is exactly where an anonymous buyer found a dreamy, untitled work on paper by the Belgian Surrealist last January, for the bargain price of $1,580. Auctioneer Rago/Wright will bring the drawing, executed in ballpoint pen, colored pencil, and pencil on paper, to auction in Lambertville, New Jersey on May 21 with a high estimate of $150,000—nearly a hundred-fold markup from the purchase price.

“This certainly isn’t an everyday thing in the auction world,” said Joe Stanfield, senior specialist and fine art director at Rago/Wright, which also has locations in Chicago and Los Angeles, in press materials. “It’s always exciting to help resurface unknown, and under-known, works from legendary artists—that our consignor found this Magritte on eBay just adds to the thrill.”

The undated drawing shows three giant white chess pieces towering over a landscape, standing so high that they overshadow puffy white clouds in the sky; the drawing thus brings together two motifs that appear elsewhere in the artist’s work. Similar imagery occurs in his 1930 The Annunciation, which hangs in the collection of London’s Tate.

The sheet once belonged to Mora Henskens, the companion of attorney Harry Torczyner, who advocated for the artist as a friend, legal adviser, writer, and collector. The pair met in 1962, the year after Henskens emigrated from the Netherlands to the United States, where she worked at the United Nations; Torcyzner practiced law in his native Belgium before fleeing World War II and setting up a New York law office in in 1946. He wrote books and articles on the artist, organized exhibitions, and donated some of his work to institutions including New York’s Museum of Modern Art. The artist even painted Torczyner’s portrait in 1958.

Henskens acquired the Rago/Wright drawing on a visit to the artist’s widow, Georgette Berger Magritte. It was in her collection until 2022, when it was sold through VanDeRee Auctions to an owner who then listed it on eBay.

No Magritte works in this exact combination of mediums appear in the Artnet Price Database, but LE MÉTÉORE (ÉTUDE), a 1964 drawing in ballpoint pen showing a horse with a tower growing from its head, fetched $200,000 at Sotheby’s New York in May 2016. La Veste (1959), executed in the same medium and showing a jacket that stands up on its own, brought $155,000 at Christie’s New York in 2013. Two other pen-on-paper works also exceeded the $100,000 mark.

René Magritte’s L’empire des lumières (1954) set a new record at Christie’s in November 2024. Courtesy of Christie’s Images, Ltd.

Auctioneers have struck gold with Magritte’s paintings in recent months. In November 2024, the famous painting L’empire des Lumières (1954) fetched $121.2 million at Christie’s in New York, setting a new auction record for the Belgian Surrealist. Coming from the collection of interior designer Mica Ertegun, it was estimated at $95 million and brought the artist into the exclusive club of artists whose works have sold for nine-figure sums even as auction prices have recently taken a deep plunge. Another from the same series from 1961 brought £59.4 million ($79.4 million) at Sotheby’s London in 2022.

Yet another from the same series will head to the block in May from the collection of Louise Riggio, the widow of Len Riggio, the founder of Barnes and Noble and longtime chairman of the Dia Art Foundation, who died last year, aged 83. It’s expected to fetch north of $30 million, which was the hammer price when Riggio bought it in November 2023