Budapest Post

Cum Deo pro Patria et Libertate
Budapest, Europe and world news

He Paid $30 for a Drawing. It Could Be a Renaissance Work Worth Millions.

He Paid $30 for a Drawing. It Could Be a Renaissance Work Worth Millions.

In 2016, a man picked up two items at an estate sale in Concord, Massachusetts: a fake jade necklace for $1 and a small drawing of the Virgin Mary and Child for $30.
He tucked the drawing away in his house, where he showed it to the occasional guest, his friend would later say. Something about it was intriguing, even though he did not know where it came from.

This month, a panel of experts at the British Museum in London delivered a stunning answer: The artwork, titled “The Virgin and Child With a Flower on a Grassy Bench,” was an undiscovered drawing by Albrecht Dürer, a renowned German artist born in 1471.

The man, whose identity has not been revealed, had made one of the most extraordinary discoveries of Renaissance artwork in years, the experts said. The drawing might be worth tens of millions of dollars.

The declaration that the drawing was the work of Dürer — an assessment that is not universally shared among researchers — came about as a result of a chance meeting and the efforts of a dogged art dealer who amassed thousands of frequent-flyer miles tracking down an answer.

First, the meeting. The owner of the drawing was friends with Brainerd Phillipson, who runs a rare-book shop in Holliston, Massachusetts. In 2019, Clifford Schorer, an entrepreneur and art dealer from Boston, stopped by the shop to purchase a last-minute gift.

They started chatting about art, and then Phillipson mentioned that his friend had what they thought could be a Dürer drawing, Phillipson said in an interview this week. The initials A.D. at the bottom of the drawing were “rather a tell,” he said.

“No, you have an Albrecht Dürer engraving,” Schorer replied, as he would later recount. Engravings are usually stamped onto a paper and are quicker to make than drawings, which are more rare and valuable.

Noting that Dürer drawings are extremely rare and that he thought all were accounted for, Schorer said he told Phillipson, “As someone who knows Albrecht Dürer in and out, it’s impossible.”

Eleven days later, the owner texted pictures of the artwork to Schorer, who said he drove straight to the man’s house, where, he said, the man and his wife lived modestly. Schorer sat down at the kitchen table to look at the piece.

“It was either a masterpiece or the greatest forgery I had ever seen,” he said.

Schorer, who specializes in recovering lost art, paid the man a $100,000 advance to sell the drawing, he said. (The exact terms are confidential, but both will get money when it sells, he said.) Schorer would lose his advance if the work turned out to be a forgery.

Phillipson said his friend, the owner of the drawing, declined to comment.

Three days later, Schorer boarded a flight to England to rush the drawing into the hands of Jane McAusland, a paper conservator who advises museums, dealers and auction houses. She did not respond to emails this week from The New York Times.

Three weeks after his visit, McAusland told him that the drawing had been stained with tea or coffee to make it look like an antique, Schorer said. But he asked her to look again, and she replied by email the next day with an image. He clicked on it, and the picture showed a translucent light shining through the paper.

“It had the trident watermark, which is only in Albrecht Dürer’s drawings,” he said. “My mind was blown.”

Dürer’s preferred medium was a special paper made by his patron, Jacob Fugger, one of the richest men who ever lived. Only Dürer’s workshop had access to that paper, which bore Fugger’s signature watermark, according to Christof Metzger, a Dürer specialist who was on the panel of experts who authenticated the drawing this month.

Schorer said he met Metzger, the chief curator at the Albertina Museum in Vienna, on his tour of 14 cities around the world to try to authenticate the drawing. Over more than two years, he said, he met a slate of experts, all but one of whom agreed that the drawing was an original Dürer.

Clues like the paper, the pen strokes and the style of the Madonna suggested that this was not a forgery, Metzger said.

He dated the piece to 1503, when Dürer made a similar depiction of the Virgin Mary on a grassy bench. Metzger believes the artist was drawing ideas for a 1506 watercolor titled “The Virgin With a Multitude of Animals.”

The newly discovered drawing was the first “complete, finalized composition” of Dürer’s to be discovered since 1932, Metzger said.

The artist’s works have long been collected because of his mastery of both granular details and hallucinatory fantasies, Metzger said, “and for this reason, a new, absolutely unknown work is absolutely once in the lifetime.”

Not all are convinced, however, that the work was drawn by Dürer.

Fritz Koreny, a senior researcher at the Institute for Art History at University of Vienna, believes it was made by a Dürer apprentice, Hans Baldung. He declined to elaborate, because he is working on his own publication about the drawing. He said, however, “All the significant details speak for Baldung.”

Koreny estimated that if Baldung made the drawing, its value would be only up to a quarter of what it would be worth if Dürer drew it.

No matter who created it, the artwork had traveled from Germany to a noble family in Italy to the Louvre Museum and private collectors in France before it wound up in Massachusetts, Metzger said.

Jean-Paul Carlhian, an architect, took the piece to Massachusetts sometime after his family acquired it in 1912, Metzger said. At some point in the last century, the family decided the drawing was not a real Dürer, Schorer said. That is most likely how it ended up at the Carlhian family’s estate sale that the unidentified buyer of the drawing attended in 2016.

Carlhian’s daughter Penny Carlhian declined to comment.

Dürer churned out piece after piece until he died in 1528. About 1,500 have been accounted for, Metzger said. Only 24 are known to remain in private collections, which is what makes the newly discovered drawing so special, he said.

For now, the drawing is being housed at Agnews Gallery in London. It will be displayed next month at the Colnaghi gallery in New York.

Schorer and the drawing’s owner stand to make a significant windfall when the drawing goes on sale, probably sometime in the new year. He declined to speculate on its value, but he said it could be the most valuable work by a Renaissance master to hit the market since a chalk sketch by Raphael sold for nearly $48 million in 2012.

Agnews Gallery plans to ask for an “eight-figure sum” for the drawing, according to a statement from the gallery last month.

Schorer has traveled the world to learn about art, but he remains astonished that the greatest piece he helped discover was found, as he put it, “in my backyard.”

“Life is downhill from that moment forward,” he said. “I’ll never have an experience like that again.”
AI Disclaimer: An advanced artificial intelligence (AI) system generated the content of this page on its own. This innovative technology conducts extensive research from a variety of reliable sources, performs rigorous fact-checking and verification, cleans up and balances biased or manipulated content, and presents a minimal factual summary that is just enough yet essential for you to function as an informed and educated citizen. Please keep in mind, however, that this system is an evolving technology, and as a result, the article may contain accidental inaccuracies or errors. We urge you to help us improve our site by reporting any inaccuracies you find using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of this page. Your helpful feedback helps us improve our system and deliver more precise content. When you find an article of interest here, please look for the full and extensive coverage of this topic in traditional news sources, as they are written by professional journalists that we try to support, not replace. We appreciate your understanding and assistance.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
The New Life of Novak Djokovic
German police raid AfD lawmaker’s offices in inquiry over Chinese payments
Volkswagen launches aggressive strategy to fend off Chinese challenge in Europe’s EV market
France Erupts in Mass ‘Block Everything’ Protests on New PM’s First Day
Poland Shoots Down Russian Drones in Airspace Violation During Ukraine Attack
Apple Introduces Ultra-Thin iPhone Air, Enhanced 17 Series and New Health-Focused Wearables
Macron Appoints Sébastien Lecornu as Prime Minister Amid Budget Crisis and Political Turmoil
Vatican hosts first Catholic LGBTQ pilgrimage
Apple Unveils iPhone 17 Series, iPhone Air, Apple Watch 11 and More at 'Awe Dropping' Event
France joins Eurozone’s ‘periphery’ as turmoil deepens, say investors
France Faces New Political Crisis, again, as Prime Minister Bayrou Pushed Out
Nayib Bukele Points Out Belgian Hypocrisy as Brussels Considers Sending Army into the Streets
France, at an Impasse, Heads Toward Another Government Collapse
The Country That Got Too Rich? Public Spending Dominates Norway Election
EU Proposes Phasing Out Russian Oil and Gas by End of 2027 to End Energy Dependence
More Than 150,000 Followers for a Fictional Character: The New Influencers Are AI Creations
EU Prepares for War
Trump Threatens Retaliatory Tariffs After EU Imposes €2.95 Billion Fine on Google
Tesla Board Proposes Unprecedented One-Trillion-Dollar Performance Package for Elon Musk
Gold Could Reach Nearly $5,000 if Fed Independence Is Undermined, Goldman Sachs Warns
Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay Secure Places at 2026 World Cup
Trump Administration Advances Plans to Rebrand Pentagon as Department of War Instead of the Fake Term Department of Defense
Big Tech Executives Laud Trump at White House Dinner, Unveil Massive U.S. Investments
Tether Expands into Gold Sector with Profit-Driven Diversification
‘Looks Like a Wig’: Online Users Express Concern Over Kate Middleton
Florida’s Vaccine Revolution: DeSantis Declares War on Mandates
Trump’s New War – and the ‘Drug Tyrant’ Fearing Invasion: ‘1,200 Missiles Aimed at Us’
"The Situation Has Never Been This Bad": The Fall of PepsiCo
At the Parade in China: Laser Weapons, 'Eagle Strike,' and a Missile Capable of 'Striking Anywhere in the World'
The Fashion Designer Who Became an Italian Symbol: Giorgio Armani Has Died at 91
Putin Celebrates ‘Unprecedentedly High’ Ties with China as Gazprom Seals Power of Siberia-2 Deal
China Unveils New Weapons in Grand Military Parade as Xi Hosts Putin and Kim
Rapper Cardi B Cleared of Liability in Los Angeles Civil Assault Trial
Google Avoids Break-Up in U.S. Antitrust Case as Stocks Rise
Couple celebrates 80th wedding anniversary at assisted living facility in Lancaster
Information Warfare in the Age of AI: How Language Models Become Targets and Tools
×