A Drawing Bought For Thirty Bucks At An Estate Sale May Be An Original Dürer Worth $50 Million

I might have to start frequenting estate and garage sales.

From The Boston Globe, December 18, 2021:

Five years after a Massachusetts buyer purchased a drawing at a Concord estate sale for $30, international art experts met in London to discuss the work many believe to be an original Dürer worth tens of millions, by some estimates. 

This week, an international panel of art experts gathered at the British Museum to discuss a work whose very existence one attendee described as “a dream” — a previously unknown drawing by the Renaissance master Albrecht Dürer that some believe could fetch $50 million at market.

That would be quite a markup for the diminutive pen-and-ink drawing, which last sold around 2016 at an estate sale in Concord for $30.

The drawing, titled “The Virgin and Child with a Flower on a grassy Bench,” is being heralded as one of the most significant finds in memory. About the size of a children’s board book, the China ink drawing depicts an intimate scene where a seated Mary, dressed in flowing robes, holds the Christ child, who observes her intently.

“I was completely astonished,” said Christof Metzger, a Dürer specialist and chief curator at the Albertina Museum in Vienna, which houses one of the world’s most important troves of the artist’s drawings. “For me there’s absolutely no doubt that this is an original by Albrecht Dürer from around 1503.”

The discovery hinges on the unlikely meeting of two men: Clifford Schorer, an entrepreneur and art dealer who specializes in recovering the lost works of Old Masters, and Brainerd Phillipson, a rare books seller from Holliston who knows the original buyer.

It was 2019, and Schorer was running late to a retirement party for Amy Meyers, former director of the Yale Center for British Art. Realizing he’d forgotten his gift for her, Schorer Googled rare book dealers in the area, landing upon Phillipson, who works out of his home and relies, in part, on a network of scouts to discover new finds.

Schorer purchased a three-volume set of writings by William Blake, but as he was leaving, Phillipson mentioned he had a friend with a drawing they suspected was by Dürer.....

....MUCH MORE

Speaking of markups and markdowns:

In 1993 The New York Times Company bought the Boston Globe for $1.1 billion.

In 2013 The Times sold the Globe to commodities hedgefunder John Henry for $70 million, realizing a 93.6% loss on the investment.

—part of our introduction to last year's "Postjournalism and the death of newspapers" + "Factoids and Fake News"