How to make a sow's ear into a silk purse

#1: buy a delapidated house with an outbuilding full of thousands of paintings and drawings by an unknown artist, who "never received critical recognition during his lifetime."

#2: work for years to get some of the work exhibited in the gallery "where he had always dreamed of exhibiting."

#3: Get an art historian to declare the artist "one of the best abstract painters of his era."

#4: Profit.

What does it mean?

Untitled, a photo by Essentialsaltes on Flickr.

The doubleness doesn't show up well in the photo, but this could well be the brightest, bestest rainbow I've ever seen.