A painting bought for under $100 from a charity shop in White Plains, near New York, in 1966 has become one of the most surprising Scottish art discoveries in decades. Kept in the family home of art teacher and painter Helene Plotkin, it sold at Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh on 4 June 2026 for £189,200 including premium. The canvas is now recognised as Interior: The Lady in Black, a major domestic interior by F.C.B.
Cadell.nnThe story accelerated when Plotkin’s son, Barry David, began investigating the painting in 2025 and 2026. Artificial-intelligence tools helped suggest a reading of the faint signature, but authentication did not rest on an algorithm. Lyon & Turnbull specialists Alice Strang and Nick Curnow examined the work in person, compared provenance records and assessed style, materials and composition.
AI supplied an opening clue; expert examination and documentary continuity carried the attribution.nnRecords reveal that the picture had sold at Christie’s London in 1966 for just £21 under the title Portrait of Miss Don Wauchope, before Plotkin found it in New York later that year. Current research has corrected that identification. The younger red-haired sitter is Cadell’s important model May Easter, and the appropriate title is Interior: The Lady in Black.
The rediscovery therefore restored not only the artist’s signature, but the painting’s identity and subject.nnCadell repeatedly turned his north-facing Edinburgh studio into a stage during the 1920s. Lilac walls, a highly polished black floor, a Louis XV-style chair, mirrors, a blue-and-white coffee set and a ribboned black fan gather here as recurring motifs.
The calm poise of May Easter and the rhythm created by the red chair and golden turban exemplify the modern colour design that distinguished Cadell among the Scottish Colourists. The six-figure result is remarkable, but so is the family’s quiet preservation of the painting for sixty years.
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