Paintings Found In House Fetch $3.4M

(CBS/AP)  Two compact Renaissance masterpieces found hanging in a retiree's suburban house have sold at auction for almost $3.4 million.

The two small panels, by Italian artist-monk Fra Angelico, were bought by an anonymous European bidder on Thursday at Duke's auction house in the southwestern English town of Dorchester. The purchaser outbid the Italian government, which had hoped to return the works to its homeland.

Auction house spokesman Guy Schwinge said he didn't know whether the paintings would leave Britain.

The 15th-century paintings, which depict two Dominican saints against a background of exquisite gold, hung for years in the Oxford home of retired manuscript librarian Jean Preston. She had bought them in California in the 1960s for a few hundred dollars.

CBS News correspondent Sheila MacVicar says the panels are barely five inches wide. She points out that Fra Angelico is considered one of the great masters of Italian Renaissance art, and has himself been beatified as a painter of holy images.

The panels originally formed part of the altarpiece of the church and convent of St. Marco in Florence. The paintings were commissioned by the banker Cosimo de Medici and his brother Lorenzo, but were separated and scattered when Napoleon invaded Italy in the 1790s.

Six of the eight panels were later found, but the fate of the remaining two remained a mystery until they were identified last year by an art expert contacted by Preston.

"She said 'Oh my! That is very interesting,' " said art historian Michael Liversidge, who identified the works. "I think she was extremely pleased that what they were had been found out."

Preston died earlier this year, aged 77. The paintings were put up for sale by her family.

Preston's sister, Angela Preston Alabaster, isn't impressed by the panels, telling CBS News, "They're not the sort of thing that you look at twice particularly. They're not attractive. If it had been Fra Angelico angels, that would have been a different kettle of fish!"

[northerner4-2009]

You could get a *lot* more for a picture of Bin Laden.

[ndlsusieq]

I have a photo album of Abraham Lincoln and his family. I was curious to how much it is worth. My Aunt was offered half a million for it.I was curious to find out if it's true or not.

[ndlsusieq]

I have a photo album of Abraham Lincoln and his family. I was curious to how much it is worth. My Aunt was offered half a million for it.I was curious to find out if it's true or not.

[alphaa10-2009]

Looting of the world's art treasures is a major industry-- it depends on a steady supply of customers who ask few, if any searching questions about provinance.

In such criminal transactions, the typical customer may easily end up with a fake/adulterated version passed as authentic.

Hobbyist collectors often know little or nothing about their art pieces and are easily taken by people who know the "business" and can misrepresent the value of the object.

Such naive collectors are the chief driver of plundered ruins around the world. Seconded by professionals who acquire them while looking the other way, perhaps to resell to these collectors. While most museums do claim to take reasonable measures to assure legitimacy, the research is often too time-consuming and costly to expose professional thieves.