10 Cases of ordinary people who found true masterpieces of universal painting

In the summer of 2017, an Arizona retiree invited appraisers to verify the originality of the sign signed by the Los Angeles Lakers players. Authenticity was confirmed, which warranted a valuation of $300. In addition to this work, auctioneers discovered several paintings by American Expressionists, including a lost painting by Jackson Pollock, valued at more than $10 million.

The collection was discovered to have been found in the garage of a man who was taken to a nursing home in the 1990s. Pollock’s unidentified canvas was auctioned for an asking price of $5 million. Supposedly, the lot was sold for 10-15 million dollars.

At the incredible.club we haven’t had the opportunity to find masterpieces of universal painting, but we have found a series of stories, after which you’ll want to check out the contents of the storage room. And as a bonus, we’ve prepared the story of the theft that brought the company worldwide fame. Mona Lisa🇧🇷

While doing a little tidying up at her home in Scotland, housewife Fiona McLaren decided to get rid of an old painting and took it to her local Sotheby’s office. The woman was left speechless when the auctioneer discovered it was a masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci. Supposedly, it is The Virgin with Child and John the Baptist.

Experts confirm that the painting was painted in the Renaissance and has all the hallmarks attributed to Da Vinci. To recognize authorship, a more detailed investigation is needed. Right now, the canvas is stored in the owner’s bank awaiting the auction🇧🇷

Da Vinci’s legacy is meager (only 14 of his paintings are known), and each is worth more than $100 million. At this time, the most expensive painting is Salvator Mundisold at Sotheby’s for $450 million.

A gentleman from Toulouse, repairing a leak in the roof, found a canvas with a biblical scene. Afterwards, the painting was shown to art historian Eric Turcuin, who recognized the second version of the painting. Judith and Holofernes by Michelangelo Caravaggiolost 400 years ago.

The family bought the house last century along with all the junk in the attic. Since then, no one has tried to remove it until a leak appears on the roof. The painting has already been shown at London’s Colnaghi art gallery after the Louvre rejected priority purchase right.

Currently, the image is valued at at least $135 million and is being prepared for the next auction.

Twenty years after Vincent van Gogh’s death, the canvas from his brother Theo’s collection fell into the hands of Norwegian Nicolai Mustad. Soon, the image was sent to the atticdue to Nicolai’s doubts about its authenticity.

Almost a century later, Mustad’s heirs remembered the painting and handed it over to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. It took two decades to confirm the painting’s authenticity, after which, in 2013, it appeared in the museum’s main exhibition.

It is rare to find Van Gogh canvases: the previous find was in 1928🇧🇷 Now it is known that Sunset at Montmajour was created at the same time as masterpieces such as The Yellow House and The Sunflowers🇧🇷

In New Jersey, two brothers found an old canvas while cleaning their parents’ house. So they invited auctioneer John Nye, who found the image to be nothing special, and valued it at approximately $800.

You can’t imagine their surprise when European art connoisseurs contacted auction representatives, suggesting that this was Rembrandt’s work The Unconscious Patient🇧🇷 Soon, the examination confirmed the authorship of the Dutch artist and the painting sold for over 1 million dollars.

During preparations for the opening of the Oscar de la Renta fashion house, located near the Champs-Elysees in Paris, a canvas was discovered. It depicts courtiers dressed in 17th-century style entering Jerusalem. Art historians have established that the picture was painted by Arnould de Vuez in 1674.

The painting will be restored, then will remain in the boutique as part of the decor. for the next 10 years. In large part, this decision was driven by the complexity of disassembling a screen of this size and the risk of damaging it.

In 2008, Christie’s auction sold the work Portrait of Woman as Floraby the Italian master Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, for more than 4 million dollars. This painting was considered lost for the past 200 years, until she was discovered in the attic of a French castle.

The canvas belonged to the grandparents of the current owners of the castle. it is believed that the painting was considered obscene due to the bare chest of the young woman portrayedwhich is why it remained hidden.

One of the works of Edgar Degas, The Showgirls, stolen from the Marseille exhibition, was found by French police officers on a bus eight years later. Apparently, the painting would have been gone forever if customs officials hadn’t thought to do a random baggage check. By the way, the owner of the luggage never showed up.

A resident of the small English town of Crawley, Philip Stapleton, bought a Picasso-like image at a local garage sale for £230. The canvas spent half a year at Philip’s house before he looked for an auctioneer. It’s hard to imagine how excited the man was to discover that he had acquired an original work by Picasso, valued at around $1 million.

Turns out Stapleton bought a miniature copy of the painting. Bather Sittingpainted by Picasso for his English friend Roland Penrose.

However, Philip’s luck ran out: the painting put up for auction was sold for just £8,000🇧🇷

In 2014, one dealer of London, Jonathan Green, bought two pastel paintings by Claude Monet at an auction in Paris. Later, a collector noticed that another was attached to one of them🇧🇷 Two were known and catalogued, and the third was new to the art world. Monet’s pastel paintings are very rare, so Green’s discovery can be considered incredible.

Who and why hid the image remains a mystery. It is known that, in 1924, Monet gave these pastel paintings as a wedding gift to the daughter of his friend Paul Durand-Ruel. From then until the auction, the French painter’s works were in the family.

In 2010, the board girl portrait, by Camille Corot, valued at $1.3 million, was stolen in New York🇧🇷 There were no leads, the police were already desperate and a reward was announced.

Two months later, goalkeeper Franklin Puente went to the police declaring that found the painting among the bushes on the way to work🇧🇷 From that moment on, girl portrait he stayed in his bathroom until he saw news about the stolen image.

As it turned out later, the courier James Haggerty, in charge of selling the artwork, had lost it near the hotel after drinking too much.

On August 21, 1911, at the Louvre, the disappearance of The Mona Lisa, by Leonardo da Vinci. For the first few hours, guards didn’t sound the alarms when they missed the image because they thought they had taken it to an event. When it became known that it had been stolen, the investigation began and the Louvre was closed for a week.

For two years, The Mona Lisa made headlines in newspapers around the world. During the investigation period, the poet Guillaume Apollinaire was arrested and even Pablo Picasso was among the suspects. However, the case was much simpler: the thief turned out to be the Louvre glazier, Vincenzo Perrugia.

For two full years, the painting hung in Vincenzo’s apartment until, in 1913, he tried to sell it to a local antique dealer. So, thanks to the theft, The Mona Lisa became known all over the world.

What would you do if you found an old painting in your house?