Auctioneer Malo de Lussac told Newsweek he knew the painting was special.
A rare piece of art has been uncovered in an unexpected place by a French auctioneer while he examined a property in France’s central region of Touraine.
Auctioneer Malo de Lussac stumbled on a true treasure: an original oil-on-canvas painting by Eugène Delacroix, one of France’s greatest 19th-century Romantic artists.
The piece, titled Study of Reclining Lions, had been in the same family’s possession for 150 years since the posthumous sale of the artist’s studio in 1864. The work is set to go to auction where it is expected to sell for around €200,000-€300,000 ($215,000-$323,000).
De Lussac told Newsweek: “I found the painting in a living room, I’d just come for an inventory, and during this inventory the owners proposed I have a coffee. And the painting was on the walls.”
The painting, measuring 24 inches by 20 inches, had hung in the family’s living room for years and they were unaware of its significance.
