Image via Complex Original
Do you scoff at hotel paintings? Do you dismiss garish works of art in second-hand stores? Is there a stack of old frames in the attic that you’ve let go ignored for decades? Well, get it together and have that shit appraised! There’s a whole world of lost, hidden, and buried artwork out there just waiting to be discovered—these stories are pricey proof. Here are 10 of The Biggest Accidental Art Discoveries of All Time. And maybe pay more heed the next time your crazy uncle says that landscape above the mantle is a real Picasso.
RELATED: The Most Unlikely Celebrity Artists
RELATED: The Most Important Artists of 2013 (So Far)
Double Goya
10. Double Goya
Location: Amsterdam
Date: 2011
Two paintings for the price of one? Medical technologies were taken to new lengths in 2010 when specially developed x-rays found a second painting by lauded Romanticist artist Francisco Goya underneath one he had already painted. It's thought to be a painting of the brother of French General Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph.
Behind-the-Couch Michelangelo
9. Behind-the-Couch Michelangelo
Location: Buffalo, NY
Date: 2010
A tennis ball knocked a painting off the wall of Martin Kober, about 30 years ago. The painting then sat wrapped up behind a sofa for that entire length of time. Something in Kober stirred in 2010, and he decided to research the painting that had been nicknamed the "Mikey" in his family because of a legend that it was an actual Michelangelo. Guess what? It was. He had an art historian take a look at it, and it happened to be a missing painting of the Renaissance master. It fell into the hands of a German baroness, who was a distant relative of Kober's. It was valued at $300 million dollars.
image via
James Castle Ceiling Stash
8. James Castle's Ceiling Stash
Location: Long Island, NY
Date: 2010
In 2010, close to 200 works of art by the self-taught outsider artist James Castle were found in the ceiling of a Boise, Idaho house where he once resided. Unfortunately for the owner of the house—and the estate of Castle, who died in 1977—a third party purchased the property in 1996. This was the same year the Castle estate came together to formally manage the remaining works of the deaf and mute artist. His artwork was his only method of communication, and the works in the Boise house were valued at tens of thousands of dollars. He only found acclaim after his death. Why he kept his finished pieces in the ceiling is still not known.
Arthur Pinajian Garage Treasure Chest
7. Pinajian Garage Treasure Chest
Location: Long Island, New York
Date: 2013
Earlier in 2013, more than $30 million worth of artwork was found in the garage of a Long Island home that a pair of investors purchased as a renovation investment. Little did they know just how greatly their investment would pay off. The works were created by Arthur Pinajian, who during his lifetime failed to find success as an artist. Pinajian once lived in the Long Island property. "Pinajian painted every day, but no one saw his art," said appraiser Peter Hastings Falk, "He received no reviews, and not one of his paintings or works on paper ever was shown in a New York gallery or museum." Considering this, upon his death, Pinajian instructed his artworks to be destroyed. These wishes were ignored, and the art collection sat in the Long Island home for decades. The buyers of the house paid an extra $2,500 for the paintings.
image via
Dog-Discovered Cave Paintings
6. Dog-Discovered Cave Paintings
Location: Montignac, France
Date: 1940
When your dog runs off into a cave, the last thing you're probably thinking about is discovering historical artworks. But that's exactly what happened in 1940 when four French teens followed their pup into the opening of a cavern. The quartet found a massive cache of paintings—hundreds of animal paintings and thousands of engravings. Even at 15,000 - 17,000 years old, they aren't the most ancient of paintings ever discovered, even in France. And yet, we have a feeling they are the first to be discovered by a dog.
Ballpark Statue
5. Ballpark Statue
Location: Guerrero, Mexico
Date: 2013
A pre-Hispanic ceremonial statue was found in 2012 when a community near a well-known ritualistic ballgame field was installing a water pipe. The reason this discovery was so strange? Mesoamericans who created artifacts like this one, considered to be about 1,000 years old, were thought to have destroyed their cultural works in ritual at the end of their harvesting seasons. That made this five-foot statue exceptionally rare.
Fresco Beneath a Fresco
4. Fresco Beneath a Fresco
Location: Florence, Italy
Date: 2011
For 400 years, a fresco by Leonardo Da Vinci was thought to be lost. But in 2011, a Giorgio Vasari mural in the Palazzo Vecchio of Florence was punctured, and traces of the same kind of black paint used in the Mona Lisa were found. In one portion of the mural, Vasari wrote the words "Cerca Trova." Translation? "Seek and you will find," a clue perhaps to the painting beneath.
Farmhouse Da Vinci
3. Farmhouse Da Vinci
Location: Scotland
Date: 2012
Fiona McLaren, a 59-year-old woman in Scotland, was strapped for cash, so she scoured her farmhouse for things to pawn last year. She had almost thrown this painting out earlier, having stared at it for the better part of 40 years as it hung in her family home. But when she called an art appraiser to possibly cash in on the piece she had inherited from her dentist father, she recounted the appraiser was speechless. The painting, considered to at least have been prepared by Da Vinci, is thought to be at least 500 years old and worth tens of millions of dollars.
image via
Yard Sale Jackson Pollock
2. Yard Sale Pollock
Location: San Bernadino, Calif.
Date: 2000
The film Who the *$&% Is Jackson Pollock? follows the discovery and appraisal of a possible Jackson Pollock painting that a 73-year-old woman purchased at a yard sale for $5—she had no idea who Pollock was when an art teacher pointed out the possibility of the painter. It is disputed whether or not the painting is really a Pollock, despite the fact a forensic art expert matched a fingerprint on the canvas to one on a paint can in Pollock's studio, a process chronicled in the film. A flurry of speculation followed, and the painting's veracity as Pollock is still unsettled. The owner has asserted she will take no less than $50 million for the painting.
Flea Market Renoir
1. Flea Market Renoir
Location: West Virginia
Date: 2012
Marcia Fuqua, a 51-year-old woman from Virginia, claimed to have purchased a very small painting by Impressionist master Renoir from a flea market for $7 in September of 2012. Turned out, the painting was stolen from the Baltimore Museum of Art back in 1951 before it was entered into the museum's registry. Though Fuqua was projected to receive $75,000 for the painting, a reporter revealed the painting was stolen, and the FBI stepped in to stop the auction. The case became even more convoluted when it was revealed Fuqua's mother had worked as a reproducer of paintings for most of her life. Last heard, Fuqua was still litigating to get the painting back.
