‘Cursed’ Painting Sells for Nearly $2000
“The painting is a little dusty and a lot cursed. Buyer Beware!”
The cursed painting recent sold by Dbas.
by Roger Norquist
“The woman at the flea market warned me before buying this and I will warn you – no good can come from this painting,” wrote eBay seller Dbas on the description of their painting featuring two dolls.
BEWARE CURSED Vintage Painting Dolls Art Creepy Eerie WARNING 1967 is a painting auctioned on eBay for the winning bid of $1,750; there were 39 other bids.
The seller wrote that they found the painting from an “oddball” art hawker. The flea market seller was described with bags under their eyes and the smell of whiskey at 9 am.
“As for the painting, it looked adorable, with two innocent-seeming dolls portrayed in it… but she was right - don’t be deceived. I don’t know whose cursed blood was mixed in with the paint to create this piece, but its powers are strong.
“It was a beautiful day when I shopped at that flea market, but that was the last beautiful day I’ve seen since during it, I made the ultimate bad decision in buying this ‘art.’”
The listing was first posted on March 5 for $50 and by March 7 the winning bid ballooned to $1750. The seller Dbas does not accept returns.
The painting is by an unknown artist using oil paint. The time of production falls into the 1960s. As far as the seller is aware, the piece is a single-piece work. The piece features the artist's signature and a curse.
Below are the words of Cursed Item Seller, Dbas
“As a collector of weird stuff, I was struck by the strangeness of the painting. One doll has the face of a grandmother but the body of a baby. Her stare is unique – forever not making eye contact, instead, giving off the feeling like there is always someone behind you with whom she’s colluding. It is made ever more eerie since her hands are positioned so gently, like she is asking for a hug, but in retrospect, she might be posed that way to lure her victims in. Meanwhile, her counterpart, a rag doll whose hair is pulled straight off the Cowardly Lion, smiles like she is unaware of how she resembles an unfortunate mutation of Raggedy Ann, with a verdant apron-like dress oddly tied directly under her chin. They sit on a pea-colored floor that reminded me of spring, of rebirth. How wrong I was as this painting only represents the ends of things. For me, it was my ability to sleep, my pet, my health, my peace of mind and if the painting doesn’t go away soon, my sanity.
“It didn’t take long before I hit what seemed like an epic losing streak. A cold spell came in that night and for every degree of warmth there was during the day, two were lost to the coolness of the air. It was worsened by a draft that descended on my house, an invisible river of chills swirling around the interior, breezing past my new painting as it leaned against the wall in my living room.
“I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and struggled for hours. Eventually, sleep started to overtake me, but a tickle on my forehead held me back from falling deeper into a slumber. Figuring it was a stray hair, I pushed it aside, but was surprised to find not a single strand, but something thicker. It wasn’t a hair, rather a leg – one of many. An insect had breached the sanctity of my bed. Reflexively, I swatted it off my forehead, but then, knowing I could never even doze with a live creature crawling around nearby, I had to locate it and dispose of it. I turned on my lamp and began to hunt, goosebumps rising on my arms because of the draft, but also because of my hatred of bugs. Behind my closet door I noticed a crack had formed in the plaster of the wall. My house is old with no insulation, and as I put my finger on the fissure to feel the cold air behind it, crumbs of plasterwork dropped to the floor. I looked down and realized they were not in fact pieces of the wall, but maggots wriggling around. Above them, adult insects emerged through the crack – an infestation lingering behind it. Disgusted, I emptied a bottle of bug spray into the wall, covered an area far larger than necessary with duct tape, then destroyed and cleaned up all the examples of each stage of the life cycle of insects off the floor, and left a message with an exterminator.
“After that, I knew I’d never return to sleep so I started the day very early. My first task went smoothly, hanging my new painting. It’s something I typically find challenging – a chore I either rage-quit or complete with a band-aid around a finger that is still throbbing from having recently been struck by a hammer. This time though, I hung it on the first try, perfectly even, like the painting wanted to be displayed.
“Next, I visited my hamster, who is typically asleep when I’m awake, but since it was technically still nighttime, my nocturnal pet would be active, though when I went to her cage, she was still in her bed and not scurrying around on her wheel as expected. Something felt off but as I approached, I saw the subtle rise and fall of her tiny breathing body. I brought my face close to my furry rodent but drew back aghast as one of the insects from my room pushed its way out from under her, no, from inside of her. Others were in there too, squirming in the cavity where her innards were housed. Distraught, I immediately tossed the cage and everything in it into a large garbage bag and disposed of it all in the bin outside.
“I returned and sat on the couch across from the painting, the novelty of the dolls quickly wearing off. Shocked by the events of the previous few hours, I lost myself in a daze as the rag doll peered at me. Time rolled on and I don’t even remember blinking. I somehow made it through my workday and that night, was able to lose myself in some binge-watching, but a spider in one scene brought everything back. In my bedroom, the tape still adhered to the wall. It didn’t matter though, I would not be sleeping in that room again, not after what I’d witnessed.
“The couch felt safer, but I still couldn’t get the rest I needed. The dolls watched as I laid there. First on my back, then my side, the other side, my stomach, and then sitting up, accepting that sleep wouldn’t come. The lack of sleep has wreaked havoc on my immune system, and I’ve been struck down by a terrible cold that’s accompanied by an incessant, throbbing headache.
“This is how it has been for five days now, sickness, loneliness, sleeplessness and uneasiness. Something has to change and because the only difference in my life since everything grew so dark around me was buying that painting, I feel the only remedy to all of this is to rid myself of it.
“But why pass it on and continue such a terrible legacy you ask? Why not destroy it you wonder? Well sure, setting the painting on fire could rid the world of the wickedness brought about by the piece, but it could just as easily unleash the evil. Who’s to say that by burning it I’m not just going to make things ten times worse? No, I don’t want to risk that, I’d rather sell it to some poor soul who doesn’t believe this story, or, even scarier, some brave soul who does.
“For the details on the piece - it comes with the frame, it is dusty since I never got around to cleaning it off after hanging it. Looking closely at it, someone might have splashed it with coffee or blood or maybe it was something that the artist did as there are faint marks by the dolls' feet. As for that artist, it is signed with the initials MNP 3-67. Of course, that could also just stand for something like ‘Many Nightmares & Phobias,’ which is what the artwork leads to.
“I'm starting the auction at $50, which is what I paid for it, but am hoping it goes for more to make up for everything I've been through. But before you bid... you've been warned!
As of publication, eBay has over 100 unique and cursed items for sale on its marketplace.
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