The good news is that Victoria artist Eva Campbell’s missing painting has been spotted. The bad news? It’s already been sold for $60 in a local thrift shop.

The Times Colonist reported Friday that Campbell’s two-by-three-foot depiction of a woman in a red bathing suit, the major panel of a large four-piece work, had gone missing from the wall of The Well, a café, retail and meeting spot on Fort Street. The Well went out of business over the Christmas holidays.

When Campbell heard the venue was closing, she contacted owner Hopeton Anderson, who brought three of the four panels to her home two days before Christmas but said he hadn’t seen the fourth. Titled Curiosities and Fantasies, the panel depicts a woman with a telescope on a beach in Barbados watching slave ships pass by.

Times Colonist reader Marilyn Carr-Harris told Campbell Friday that she remembered seeing the painting when she was perusing the art listings on UsedVictoria.com.

Campbell visited the thrift shop that advertised the work on Used Victoria and learned the painting had been sold.

She was told there’s an off-chance the purchaser may be known to the staff and identifiable from the security tape.

An employee told her the shop paid for the contents of The Well, where Campbell had hung paintings since 2011.

Campbell, who said she’s been unable to reach Anderson, who is travelling, said she is willing to give the new owner the $60 back. The painting has her name and the title on the back.

Campbell can be reached at cjuliev@yahoo.ca.

© Copyright 2013