A pensioner who turned down a Van Gogh masterpiece when her in-laws said it was worthless has admitted she was “very naive” after it sold for an estimated £13million.

Gaye Horrell, 76, was offered the painting – entitled Peasant Woman in Front of a Farmhouse – for free in 1967.

The painting was sold at the The European Fine Art Fair in Holland last month to a mystery buyer, and although the price has not been revealed, the painting – showing a peasant woman in a blue dress outside a ramshackle farmhouse and completed by Van Gogh in 1885 – was estimated to sell for between £12m-£13m.

Speaking after the sale Mrs Horrell – who was married to Tim Holme at the time in Staffordshire – revealed that her in-laws Charles and Molly Holme asked if she wanted anything from their farmhouse before they held a sale….