‘The owners’ faces turned pale. They were speechless’: How a €3m painting was discovered
A small oil painting that hung in a home in Spain for decades turned out to be a Caravaggio
It took all of six minutes for Massimo Pulini to realise that the small oil painting due to go under the hammer in Madrid earlier this month with a guide price of €1,500 could be worth millions.
At 9.48pm on March 24th, Pulini, a 63-year-old professor at Bologna Fine Arts Academy, received an email request for an evaluation. Sent by an antiques dealer and friend of Pulini’s, it included a photo of a luminous oil painting of the scourged Christ.