Courtesy Duke's

Ludovico Mazzolino's "The Virgin Child and St. Joseph" (1522) was put into storage in 1950 and forgotten, until its recent discovery.

Ludovico Mazzolino

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The 1522 painting, which depicts the Madonna and Child with St. Joseph in an Italian-style landscape, will be auctioned next month at Duke’s, in Dorchester, with an estimated value between £40,000 and £60,000 ($97,000). The work was last sold at public auction in London in 1812 for just £20. It was put into storage in 1950 and had remained there ever since. The seller told Duke’s he had forgotten he owned the painting, and it was only as he was showing the auctioneers photographs of other items he wished to sell that they stumbled across the painting, which was later verified by National Gallery experts. The rare sale of a Mazzolino is expected to generate great excitement; a painting by the artist fetched almost £350,000 in July 2005.

Read more at the London Telegraph.