BEIJING, Nov. 21 (Xinhuanet) -- A north American buyer outdueled a phone bidder on Tuesday to purchase for 1 million U.S. dollars a painting by one of Mexico's most famous artists that was found in a pile of trash on a New York street nearly 20 years after it disappeared from a Texas warehouse.

    "Tres personajes" ("Three People"), a 1970 work by Rufino Tamayo, was bought for 1,049,000 dollars Sothbeys's auction house said.

    It had been retrieved from the trash by Elizabeth Gibson, who spotted the work while out walking one morning in 2003. She found the painting, measuring 98 by 130 centimeters (38 by 50 inches), in perfect condition.

    "It was a Saturday morning. I went out for a coffee at 7 am. I saw it on the sidewalk among black plastic garbage bags," she told AFP ahead of the sale. "I passed my way and had my coffee, but a voice inside kept telling me to go back and take the painting. So I stopped reading my book and I went back and took the painting, which had a very bad frame but was in perfect condition."

    The work, with bold strokes of red, purple and yellow, was bought for 55,000 dollars in 1977 by a Texas man for his wife's birthday. The couple put it in storage while they moved house and noticed the painting was missing in 1987 when picking up their belongings at the warehouse.

    Tipped off by a friend that the painting could be valuable, Gibson started investigating only to find on the Internet that the work had been featured on U.S. television show "The Antiques Roadshow" in a segment on missing paintings.

    Gibson approached Sotheby's, which helped return the painting to its original owner, who remains unidentified.

    The painting carried a pre-sale estimate of 750,000 to one million dollars. Gibson has already received a 15,000-dollar reward for helping secure its return and was to receive an undisclosed sum from the sale.

    (Agencies)