{"id":401989,"date":"2025-11-24T19:52:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T19:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/401989\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T19:52:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T19:52:16","slug":"garage-find-could-be-a-lost-renaissance-masterpiece-worth-900k","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/401989\/","title":{"rendered":"Garage find could be a lost Renaissance masterpiece worth $900K"},"content":{"rendered":"

One man\u2019s garage junk is now an art historian\u2019s treasure. <\/p>\n

A dusty painting sitting under a garage workbench just traded places \u2014 straight into the Renaissance big leagues with a price tag fit for a Medici.<\/p>\n

Without a clue of its origins, the Oxfordshire local who snagged the priceless artwork years ago unknowingly owned a masterpiece by 15th-century Italian painter Pietro Vannucci, better known as Perugino, once considered a contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci.<\/p>\n

The long-forgotten panel, dubbed Madonna and Child, sparked a frenzy after hitting the website of JS Fine Arts in Banbury, where international collectors jammed the phone lines and sent staff scrambling.<\/p>\n

When the bidding finally kicked off, the battle was as dramatic as a Vatican fresco reveal: 15 minutes of online, phone, and in-room chaos that ended with a private buyer shelling out \u00a3685,000 \u2014 roughly $750,000 \u2014 and smashing the auction house\u2019s previous record of \u00a3285,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the hammer fell, there was a hush, then applause,\u201d Joe Smith, the principal auctioneer, said in a statement. \u201cIt was one of those moments every auctioneer dreams of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not bad for something that spent years collecting dust next to power tools.<\/p>\n

Experts believe the serene portrait could be the real deal from Perugino, one of the most celebrated painters of the Italian Renaissance.<\/p>\n

Smith said the surge of interest \u201csurpassed anything I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PaintingHoly mother of a find! A long-lost Madonna and Child painting discovered beneath a garage workbench just fetched nearly three-quarters of a million dollars. JS Fine Art<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cWe knew it was special, but the response was beyond anything we expected. The longer you looked, the more you realized the quality of the workmanship and the elegance of the Renaissance detailing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nicknamed \u201cIl Perugino,\u201d he was once considered on par with the \u201cMona Lisa\u201d creator himself and was tapped \u2014 alongside Sandro Botticelli \u2014 to decorate the walls of the Sistine Chapel long before Michelangelo muscled in with his ceiling.<\/p>\n

Perugino\u2019s graceful figures and soft landscapes heavily influenced his star pupil Raphael, who eventually overshadowed the master and claimed the Renaissance spotlight.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even Michelangelo reportedly dismissed Perugino as \u201cclumsy\u201d (as per<\/a> the Victoria & Albert Museum) \u2014 though collectors in 2024 seem to disagree.<\/p>\n

\"EngravingMichelangelo may have owned the ceiling, but this garage find \u2014 supposedly by painter Pietro Vannucci (better known as Perugino) is stealing the spotlight \u2014 and hauling in $750K in the process. De Agostini via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The new owner, who remains anonymous, has reportedly sent the work to a conservator as research continues into its origins.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If authenticated, it could join the ranks of Perugino\u2019s prized pieces housed in top museums \u2014 including the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, which bought one of his frescoes back in 1862.<\/p>\n

And speaking of surprise Madonna-and-Child discoveries, another holy image has been stirring up divine drama on the other side of the world.<\/p>\n

As previously reported<\/a> by The Post, a bargain-bin Mary-and-Jesus print in Honolulu has believers convinced it\u2019s doing more than collecting dust \u2014 it\u2019s weeping myrrh.<\/p>\n

The $20 portrait, originally plucked from a Toronto clearance pile, is now displayed at Holy Theotokos of Iveron Russian Orthodox Church in Hawaii\u2019s capital, where parishioners say it\u2019s mysteriously oozing the fragrant resin.<\/p>\n

Myrrh \u2014 basically biblical bubblegum, the sweet sap the Wise Men once schlepped \u2014 has been hailed by believers as a cure-all for everything from aching joints to blindness to full-blown cancer.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s no wonder the sticky spectacle is drawing crowds from around the globe.<\/p>\n

In 2010, the church\u2019s priest, Father Nectarios Yangson, said the myrrh aroma was once so powerful it had his cat standing upright on its hind legs in response to it.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, from a \u00a3685,000 Renaissance stunner to a bargain-bin Mary that cries myrrh, it seems Madonna-and-Child artworks are having a moment \u2014 some fetch fortunes, others just leak them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One man\u2019s garage junk is now an art historian\u2019s treasure. A dusty painting sitting under a garage workbench…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":401990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[1037,648,1032,16438,1033,171,66300,24407,1165,1069,67,132,68,39590],"class_list":{"0":"post-401989","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-art","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-auctions","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-jesus","15":"tag-leonardo-da-vinci","16":"tag-lifestyle","17":"tag-painting","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-weird-but-true"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115606424949860804","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}