A canvas by beloved U.S. painter Norman Rockwell, discovered hidden behind a false wall earlier this year, has sold at auction for a record $15.4 million US.

An anonymous telephone bidder purchased Breaking Home Ties at a Sotheby's sale of American art this week. It had been estimated to sell for between $4 million US and $6 million US.

Norman Rockwell's Breaking Home Ties, which appeared on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post in 1954, was discovered behind a fake wall in its late owner's home. It sold this week for $15.4 million US.
(Norman Rockwell Museum/Associated Press)

The canvas depicts a father, son and dog sitting on the running boards of their truck, waiting for the train as the boy prepares to leave for college.

Inspired by Rockwell's life

Breaking Home Ties was one of Rockwell's most famous works, first appearing on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post in 1954. A year later, the magazine's readers voted it their second-favourite cover ever.

Rockwell, who died in 1978, was inspired to paint Breaking Home Ties after his eldest son had enlisted in the air force and two other sons had left for school.

The Sotheby's sale was a dramatic leap over the previous record high price paid for a Rockwell work: just this past May, the folksy artist's Homecoming Marine sold for $9.2 million US.

The back story of the painting is equally exciting. Rockwell himself had sold it to his friend, an illustrator and cartoonist named Don Trachte, for $900 US.

Original hidden for decades

Unbeknownst to his family, Trachte copied the painting and other works in his collection and hid the originals behind a false wall in his studio while displaying the replicas.

A few years ago, when Trachte's health began failing, his sons sent what they believed to be the real Breaking Home Ties to the Norman Rockwell Museum for safekeeping. Despite inconsistencies between the canvas and the Saturday Evening Post cover, it went on display in 2003.

Trachte died in 2005, never having revealed his secret, but his sons had nagging suspicions about the authenticity of the canvas. This spring, after a renewed search of their father's studio, they discovered the false wall and the original canvases.

In addition to Breaking Home Ties and other Rockwell works, the Sotheby's event also saw the sale of Edward Hopper's Hotel Window for $26.8 million US.

The large-scale canvas, painted in 1955 and displayed at the Whitney Museum of American Art this summer, also set a new record high price for the artist's work.

With files from the Associated Press.