After restoration, the naturalistic and fleshy bodies of the figures emerged in Otto van Veen’s “Apollo and Venus.” While an official value has not been placed on the artwork, it is expected to be worth millions of dollars.
For anyone who is a fan of “Antiques Roadshow,” this is a story for you.

Two years ago, Robert Warren, the executive director of Hoyt Sherman Place in Des Moines, was searching for a box of Civil War flags in the theater’s upstairs storeroom when he came across a painting wedged between a table and a plaster wall. The surface was scratched and faded, but there was a sticker on the back, a label from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the painting had once been on display.

Mr. Warren had stumbled upon “Apollo and Venus,” an oil painting on wood by the 16th-century Dutch master Otto van Veen. It had been stowed in the storeroom for decades and is now potentially worth millions of dollars.