Did you hear about the woman who bought an ancient Roman bust from a Texas Goodwill for $34.99?
“He looked great in the house while I had him"
Texas art collector Laura Young specializes in finding undervalued art, and while shopping at a Goodwill in Austin in 2018, she made the buy of her career. Young spotted a marble bust on the floor under a table that she bought for $34.99. Turns out it was an actual ancient Roman bust that dates to as far back as the late 1st century B.C.
That’s according to the San Antonio Museum of Art, which is exhibiting the bust through May 2023. It’s unclear how the bust got to Texas, but the museum said it was likely brought to the U.S. by a returning soldier after World War II from Germany.
Young did her due diligence to find out the origin of the sculpture after her purchase, and a Sotheby’s consultant eventually IDed it as a bust that was once owned by King Ludwig I of Bavaria. It heads back to Germany next year.
Young said in a statement “there were a few months of intense excitement” after finding out about the origins of the bust, “but it was bittersweet since I knew I couldn’t keep or sell [it].”
“He looked great in the house while I had him,” she added.
In other Goodwill art news, a college student in Illinois recently spotted Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara’s ashtray “Too Young To Die” (2002) on sale for $10, which he bought and resold for $2,860 on eBay. Umm… who wants to go art thrifting with me this weekend?