Family fixing leak in the attic accidentally finds a painting — it turned out to be a $170m Renaissance masterpiece

Many art enthusiasts around the world might dream of owning a Renaissance painting. But all a French family had to do was go and fix a leak in their ceiling to find a painting that could be a lost Caravaggio. The 400-year-old canvas was found accidentally when the owners of a house near Toulouse, France, went to their attic to fix a leak. The canvas was really well-preserved and showed the scene of Judith beheading Holofernes, from the Book of Judith, per The Guardian. It might have been painted between 1600 to 1610 and could be a work of the Italian painter, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, known for his intense realism and strong contrasts of light and dark, aka chiaroscuro.

The painting was labelled "Caravaggio in the attic" and France put an export ban on it for 30 months to ensure that it wouldn't leave the country before investigations were carried out. A painting expert, Eric Turquin, said that the painting could be worth 120 million Euros ($137.5 million). Turquin described the painting as, "The light, the energy, typical of Caravaggio, without mistakes, done with a sure hand and a pictorial style that makes it authentic." However, many specialists questioned the authenticity of the painting. But Nicola Spinoza, Caravaggio expert and the former director of Naples Museum, shared, "One has to recognise the canvas in question as a true original of the Lombard master, almost certainly identifiable, even if we do not have any tangible or irrefutable proof."

Turquin shared that two experts he consulted felt that the painting belonged to Louis Finson, a Flemish painter who possessed a number of works by the Milan painter and made copies of his pictures. "But the third expert I met told me that it was not only a Caravaggio, but also a masterpiece. 'Judith Beheading Holofernes' must be considered the most important painting, by far, to have emerged in the last 20 years by one of the great masters," Turquin recounted. The painting, which measured 144cm x 175cm, was found in April 2014 in the rafters of a house. After finding the painting, the family called local auctioneer Marc Labarde, Turquin's partner. The painting was kept away from the public for two years and studied using infrared reflectography and X-rays.

Turquin staked his reputation to claim that the painting was indeed Caravaggio's Judith beheading Holofernes, per another article by the outlet. In 2019, the piece was bought by a foreign buyer 2 days before it was going to be auctioned in France. "The fact that the offer comes from a collector close to a major museum convinced the seller to accept [the offer]," Labarde remarked. The painting could have been sold for as much as $170 million, but the selling price and the identity of the buyer were not revealed because of a confidentiality agreement. Turquin believed that the painting was from 1606 and its existence had first been noted because of the letters exchanged between Italian dukes and art dealers.

"[The cleaning] has shown that the painting was changed a lot as it was painted, with lots of retouching. That proves it is an original," Turquin continued. "Copyists don’t make changes like that. They copy." Another version of the scene by Finson is owned by Palazzo Zevallos in Naples, per the outlet. The family who owned the painting explained that the artwork might have been brought to France by one of their ancestors who was an officer in Napoleon's army.