Normally we consider the artwork adorning office walls a step above dentist waiting room art. But the painting titled "El Albanil," which hung behind the office door of Texan Rue Ferguson, is a glaring exception.
The unassuming piece, bought by Ferguson's great grandparents in 1920, is actually a masterpiece by Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, as Antiques Road Show revealed last week. The painting, made when Rivera was only 18 years old, is worth between $800,000 and $1 million, but it lived in obscurity in Ferguson's home office for years.
According to the Corpus Christi Caller, Ferguson's great-grandparents originally purchased the work in Mexico and passed it on to his parents, who thought it was a fake. They then kept the work in storage, unaware of its true value. While any Rivera work would be worth a hefty sum, this painting holds particular importance because it shows a young artist of note still developing his craft. Ferguson realized the weightiness of the piece and decided the work likely "needs to be in a museum where everybody can look at it," as he explained during his PBS appearance.
See the great reveal below and prepare to be jealous.
Watch Interview: 1904 Diego Rivera "El Alba?il" Oil Painting on PBS. See more from Antiques Roadshow.
See other dramatic art finds in the slideshow below:
Owl In The Attic
Jane Cordery, an art teacher in Hampshire, England, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/17/pre-raphaelite-artwork-found-in-attic-sells-christies-william-james-webbe_n_2314880.html">discovered this detailed bird portrait </a>in her attic after attempting to clean the space for a plumber. She e-mailed a photograph of the find to Christie's, where "The White Owl," was identified as the work of pre-Raphaelite artist William James Webbe, and valued at ?70,000, or $113,449.
A Lost Da Vinci
A lost painting by Leonardo da Vinci <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/07/lost-da-vinci-painting-wo_n_1751869.html">may have turned up in a Scottish farmhouse</a> owned by a family of non-collectors, named the McLarens. The discovered portrait, which should be officially dated by next year, bears telltale hairlines, shoulders, toes, and a hidden fleur-de-lys that point to Da Vinci, as well as a likeness to a traced figure in the "Last Supper." If the farmhouse find is indeed a 500-year-old original, it is may be worth over $150 million.
A Dali At Goodwill
A mysterious donor dropped off a signed etching by Surrealist master Salvador Dali at a Goodwill in Tacoma, Washington this year, where an art-savvy employee quickly identified it. It was since added to the organization's online auction system, where it sold for <a href="http://www.shopgoodwill.com/viewItem.asp?itemID=11802927&history=show#des">a bargain price of $21, 005</a>.
The One That Got Away
Here's one of those art find stories that's dramatic for the wrong reasons. Reinhold Hoffmann, a 70-year-old retiree, captured the attention of European media when his partner bought a $25 book of old stamps at a Dresden, Germany, flea market, and one of them of them looked like a one-cent stamp from 1867 potentially worth $3 million, featuring Benjamin Franklin and a rare "Z Grill" pattern. The Philatelic Foundation quickly gave Hoffman the bad news: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/26/reinhold-hoffmann-german-_n_2023161.html">just one of those lame F Grills</a>, bro.
Meanwhile, In Another German Flea Market...
A luckier German bargain shopper stumbled across the rare book treasure of a lifetime. A consultation with the auction house Ketterer Kunst revealed that a brochure he paid ?5 for, a catalog for a 1912 traveling exhibition of German expressionist Die Br?cke artists, is valued at ?18,000, or $23,400.
A Bargain Bolotowsky
Like most unsuspecting thrifters, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/24/beth-feeback-finds-famous_n_1910678.html">Beth Feeback wasn't aware of her painting's famous origins</a> when she bought it at a North Carolina Goodwill for $9.99. In fact the artist, who specializes in portraits of cats, was just looking to upcycle an unwanted canvas for her own work. But a quick Google search of a name printed on the back of the canvas prevented her from turning the original Ilya Bolotowsky into scrap. ABC News reports that Feeback sold her abstract find for $27,000 at auction.
The Flea Market Renoir
A woman who bought a $7 box lot at a flea market <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/07/renoir-flea-market-paysage-bords-de-seine_n_1866236.html">unwittingly scored a painting by Pierre-August Renoir</a>. But don't get too jealous: "Renoir Girl," as the finder was known to the media, wasn't able to cash in her original "Paysage Bords De Seine." In a dramatic twist, the painting that launched a thousand flea market visits turned out to be <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/09/27/161911081/renoir-found-at-flea-market-may-be-real-but-its-also-stolen">stolen six decades ago from the Baltimore Museum of Art</a>.
A Hidden JFK
Pam Dwyer's purchase of a horse painting at a yard sale in Arizona <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/23/pam-dwyer-arizona-woman-b_n_2177804.html">turned out to be more than it seemed</a>. On a hunch, Dwyer and her husband removed the work from the frame only to uncover a portrait of President John F. Kennedy from 1961, by the infamous forger and artist Carmelo Soraci. While the painting is proving tough to appraise, experts note that its historical significance makes it a good fit for a place like the Smithsonian.
An Unloved Masterpiece
Sometimes you just don't like a painting, no matter how "great" it is. That's how one Scottish woman felt in the early 1960s, when her husband came home with a painting of roses that she disliked enough to banish to a spare room. Let this be a lesson to those who are easily dismissive of gifts. The BBC reports that the painting in question was recently identified as "Pink Roses," an original oil work by one of Scotland's most influential artists, Samuel Peploe, valued by McTear's Auctioneers in Glasgow at ?300,000. The price the obedient husband originally paid? "Not significant enough to remember," according to the unnamed seller, who is the couple's son.
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/14/diego-rivera-found-office-door-antiques-road-show_n_2471089.html
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