Could a painting found in an attic restore faith in a suddenly shaky art market?

An 18th-century Italian depiction of the goddess Flora recently uncovered in the attic of a French chateau was the headline lot in a surprisingly successful sale of Old Master and British painting at Christie's London last night, Bloomberg reports. The 44-lot sale earned £14.7 million ($21.8 million), just below its pre-sale low estimate of £15.6 million, with 80 percent of lots being sold. The house’s equivalent sale last December made £18.8 million with just 54 percent of 70 lots selling.

“I was surprised how well it did,” said the New York dealer Anthony Crichton-Stuart. “There was an expectation that there would be the same fallout in the Old Master market as there was in modern and contemporary. But it didn’t happen.”

Then again, he pointed out, prices for Old Masters hadn’t risen to the “dizzying heights” of works in those other categories.

Christie’s researchers were able to establish that the unknown painting in the French attic was actually by the Venetian master Giambattista Tiepolo, and was possibly part of a series of pictures commissioned by Empress Elizabeth of Russia.

The work was estimated to fetch £700–900,000, but drew interest from at least four bidders before selling to London dealer Jean-Luc Baroni for £2.8 million.

“I’m pleased with the price,” said Baroni. “It was the best painting by the best Italian 18th-century artist I’ve seen. Six months ago, it could have made £5 million. Everyone’s scared at the moment.”

The Tiepolo was the evening’s second highest result. Top honors went to a Canaletto depiction of the Grand Canal in Venice. That lot realized £3,849,250, against pre-sale estimates of £3–5 million.