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Curses · Cursed objects

“The Hands Resist Him” – the eBay Haunted Painting

When
February 2000 date from records made at the time
Where
Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States
Verdict
Legend

The eBay sellers warned that the figures in the painting left the frame at night. Tens of thousands viewed the auction, and the painting became an internet legend.

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42.96°, -85.67° · dimmed: other phenomena within 1,500 km

What happened

In 1972 California painter Bill Stoneham painted “The Hands Resist Him”: a boy and a girl doll stand in front of a glass-paned door with dozens of hands pressed against it from the other side. The boy is the artist himself, based on a photograph taken when he was five; the door is the line between waking life and the world of fantasy, the doll a guide, and the hands other possible lives. The painting was shown at a gallery in Beverly Hills and was reportedly bought by actor John Marley. In February 2000 anonymous sellers listed it on eBay with a dramatic description: the painting had come to them from a picker who had found it abandoned, and since it had hung in their home the figures moved at night and even left the painting to enter the room. They added a series of photos in which the child appeared to “threaten” them with a gun. Internet users wrote that merely looking at the pictures made them feel ill or uneasy. The auction page was viewed more than 30,000 times; listed at $199, the painting sold after 30 bids for $1,025 to the Perception Gallery in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Witnesses

The anonymous eBay sellers (auction listing of February 2000) and internet users who viewed the photos; the buyer, Kim Smith of Perception Gallery, and the artist later spoke to the media about the affair.

Explanations and hypotheses

The story is widely regarded as an internet legend born of an imaginative auction listing – there is no evidence that the figures ever moved. Bill Stoneham was surprised by the whole affair and explained that the object the sellers took for a gun is a dry-cell battery with a tangle of wires; his studio advises people to “doubt more than you believe” when reading about the painting. Nor has it been confirmed that the painting really belonged to John Marley. Claims circulating online about a “curse” striking people connected with the painting rest on coincidence. The new owner keeps the painting at her gallery.

Legend A story handed down through generations – it can be neither confirmed nor disproved.

Sources

  1. BBC Derby – The Ebay Haunted Painting (Gavin Bevis, 2002)
  2. Stoneham Studios – Haunted: the story of the eBay haunted painting

More: Wikipedia (en)