An Italian art historian was in for a huge shock when a family showed him a lost Michelangelo painting hidden behind their couch.

The unfinished painting of Jesus and Mary by one of the world's most famous artists is being hailed as the art find of the century and could be worth $300 million.

It is now being stored in a bank vault.

Art historian and restorer Antonio Forcellino was sceptical when he visited the Kober family's home in New York.

"I had assumed it was going to be a copy," Mr Forcellino told the New York Post.

Instead, the trip left him breathless upon laying eyes on the Renaissance artist's painting.

"This painting was even more beautiful than the versions hanging in Rome and Florence," Mr Forcellino told the Post.

"I had visions of telling them that there was this crazy guy in America telling everyone he had a Michelangelo at home."

The "crazy guy in America" was 53-year-old Martin Kober who, after retiring from the Air Force in 2003, had some time on his hands and decided to research if "The Mike" was real, the Post said.

The painting once hung on the family's living room wall until the children's tennis ball sent it flying to the ground.

The Kober family wrapped it up and hid it behind a couch, where it remained for 27 years.

A scientific analysis of the painting - believed to have been painted in 1545 - proved the Michelangelo was real.

Mr Forcellino, an expert in Michelangelo art, said infrared and X-ray examinations of the painting showed many alterations made by the artist as he changed his mind, and an unfinished portion near the Madonna's right knee, the Post said.

"The Pieta painting was passed to two Catholic cardinals, eventually ending up in the hands of a German baroness named Villani," the Post said.

"The work ended up in the Kober family after Villani willed it to her lady-in-waiting Gertrude Young.
"Young was the sister-in-law of Kober's great-grandfather and she sent the work to America in 1883."



http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/offbeat/8116640

Don't know why whitepeople attach too much importance to art,an unfinished picture wat bout 300 mil, And it isn't even d real Jesus on paper

Brisingr:
Don't know why whitepeople attach too much importance to art,an unfinished picture wat bout 300 mil, And it isn't even d real Jesus on paper

I suppose they do that because they recognise how unique it is to be creative and original.