In case you have some old paintings lying around your house, give them a closer inspection. You might discover that they are worth a lot of money. This is exactly what happened to one French family, who found out that an ordinary painting hanging in their TV room is actually Pieter Brueghel the Younger original worth $845,000.
According to a story published by the Associated Press, the discovery was made when the unnamed family called experts from the Daguerre Val de Loire auction house to appraise some of their antiques. The lead appraiser Malo de Lussac was checking the items in the family’s TV room when he noticed a painting by Brueghel called “The Village Lawyer” hanging behind the door.
The family believed the painting was a copy from the 1900s, but De Lussac decided to give it a closer look regardless. After being checked by the experts, the artwork turned out to be the 17th century original.
“The family ancestors bought the painting as an original, but over the years, the real story was completely lost orally … Maybe the family was not necessarily interested in this painting,” de Lussac told the AP. “Yes, they called it the Brueghel, but they had no idea it actually was!”
The family’s newly discovered Brueghel ended up being offered at an auction with an estimated price between $650,000 and $880,000. An anonymous buyer from Switzerland ended up paying $845,000 for the piece.
It is believed that Brueghel painted between 20 and 30 versions of “The Village Lawyer,” with 19 of them being signed. Most authenticated versions are in museums, including Berlin’s German History Museum and Antwerp’s Royal Museum of Fine Arts.
