$300M Behind The Couch
I love these kinds of stories. A New York family discovered that a painting they had behind their couch for 30 years is probably a Michelangelo painted almost 500 years ago and maybe worth an estimated $300M. The painting used to be hanging on the wall of their house until a tennis ball knocked it off. Everyone in the family had always heard the legend it was a Michelangelo but nobody really did any investigating until after one of the family retired and was given the task of checking.
He checked and checked and convinced some experts to take a look at it and examined how it came to be in this upstate New York house. The painting in the home is not a new discovery. There are records of its existence and is mentioned in Vatican letters dating from that time period. Here is how it got to be in the house.
The painting was passed to two Catholic cardinals, eventually ending up in the hands of a German baroness named Villani. The work ended up in the New York family after Villani willed it to her lady-in-waiting Gertrude Young. Young was the sister-in-law of the family's great-grandfather and she sent the work to America in 1883.
24 comments:
This is sooo cool...think the church will try to get it back ?
Score
I too love stories like that. The painting, not so much.
I'd willingly give it to the Vatican...in exchange for Papal Infallibility. And a really sweet rosary.
Oh and $300m.
That is not one of his best works.
I love stories like this! And I would sell it. The responsibility of owning something of this magnitute would be staggering, not to mention the cost of preserving and storing it. Sell the painting to a private collector who will lend it to a museum, pay the exorbitant taxes and retire in luxury.
Can you imagine if the tennis ball put a hole through it?
Great story. However, watch the extended family crawl out of the woodwork.
Eesh. That painting is definitely not something that belongs hanging over a couch.
@nightmare child....love it!
I'm with you Mango!
I'd tell the Vatican to shove it up their felonious pee holes.
My Ex worked in a old, dusty art gallery and he accidentally poked a hole through a Gainsborough. After shitting himself he proceeded to patch the hole which, to his knowledge, no one ever discovered.
Also, I'll bet this fugly painting has a butt-load of subliminal shit in it. Leonardo D. was a master of artistic subterfuge.
How come I never find anything more valuable then a $1.50 off coupon for Dunkin Donuts behind my couch????
If that painting ultimately is verified as a Michelangelo I'll eat my hat. Just look at a reproduction of any genuine Michelangelo online and tell me you see a resemblence.
Remember, this the New York Post we're talking about!
LOL@skeeball
I saw a roadshow antiques episode where a couple bought a painting at some rummage store. They wanted the frame, and thought it was really expensive. The appraiser proceeded to tell themthat the frame was worth about 100 bucks, but the painting inside it was worth 100 grand. The looks on their faces was priceless.
DaVinci purposefully painted-in subliminal stuff in his paintings when commissioned by either the church or a ruling/royal family for some God-awful, sappy dreck. The joke was squarely on them. So, truly, some of his work had major twists that only he, with his superior intellect, built-in as an ultimate inside joke on his benefactors.
True story, look it up!
this story is about michelangelo.
The story is cool but is anyone not bothered by the fact that the painting remained behind a couch for 30 years? Didn't they ever vacuum behind their couch or feel the need to move it somewhere? I don't know why I am focusing on that tidbit when $300m is on the table. ;)
@MCH: I had a gf once who went to Europe and said that one thing that really bugged her was the dust bunnies all over the Louvre!
......and....THANKS for that, ea17.
"Nuff said.
Nitey nite, all!
Duhhhh.....
It's still a fugly painting.
and the family called in "The Mike" all these years lol (no, seriously, they did)
I love stories like this too. (And just for the record, and in some of the other news coverage the art expert who assumed this story was a crock but who went to check it out and left with his jaw on the ground says this painting is far superior to Michelangelo's other work on the same theme. I'm serious on that point too.)
@Robert - That is hilarious. :)
@Nightmare Child - fo real.
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