UPI – A drawing purchased for USD30 at a yard sale has been valued at more than USD10 million after being identified as a previously unknown work by German Renaissance artist Albrecht Durer.
The London-based Agnews Gallery said Clifford Schorer, a Boston-based art collector and consultant for the gallery, was in a Massachusetts bookstore in 2019 when the owner asked him to take a look at a drawing purchased by a friend.
The bookseller told Schorer the drawing, which had been purchased for USD30 at a yard sale in 2017, might be a Durer original.
Schorer said he was sceptical, but he visited the owner, who wished to remain anonymous, a few weeks later and was shocked to see the drawing, titled The Virgin and Child, appeared to be the work of Durer, who died in 1528.
“When you’re in my world you spend your life looking for unknown things that lead to fascinating research avenues… and I could see I was at the beginning of something extremely exciting,” Schorer told CNN.
Schorer said he spent three years travelling around the world to verify the authenticity of the piece. The art collector said experts agree that technical age analysis places the drawing in the right time period and the piece bears the hallmarks of Durer’s work.
Schorer said he believes the drawing could be worth more than USD10 million.
