WOMAN FINDS REAL 2,000 YEAR OLD ROMAN BUST STATUE AT GOODWILL FOR $35
Although we have heard of a few fascinating finds from thrift stores in the past, Laura Young's tale might surpass them all. Young, who has been selling antiques for roughly ten years, came across something that attracted her attention in 2018 while perusing a Goodwill in Texas. There was an interesting marble bust hidden under a table. It cost $34.99 and was around fifty pounds in weight. Although Young usually didn't spend this much at Goodwill, she went with her gut and bought it. Amazing things happened after that.
Young was intrigued by the marble bust and started contacting specialists to find out more about its background. Sotheby's eventually verified her suspicion that this statue was unique. Their consultant claimed that a first-century CE Roman bust of Julio-Claudian sitting in her living room. Even though Young thought the sculpture appeared Roman, the news still took her by surprise.
However, how did an artefact from antiquity like this get to Texas across the ocean? Although experts cannot agree on the bust's subject, they can all agree on where it came from. It was formerly in the collection of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, who ruled from 1825 until 1848, according to records.
He had a sizable collection of antiquities and loved the arts. He even built an exact replica of a Pompeiian villa in Aschaffenburg, Germany. This portrait bust was once housed in a place known as Pompeiianum, where it stayed until the Second World War. The Allied Forces bombed Pompeianum in 1944. The Pompeiianum is thought to have been unguarded, allowing military personnel to come and go whenever they pleased. We do know that the bust vanished after that point and reappeared in Austin in 2018, even though it's unclear how it got to the country.
Stephennie Mulder, an art historian at the University of Texas at Austin, says, "We know that many of the objects were either destroyed in the Allied bombing campaign or looted afterwards." "Unfortunately, in this instance, it may have been a U.S. soldier who either bought it from someone who had looted the object or looted it himself."
Young alerted the German government to the stolen artwork as soon as she was able to confirm the provenance of her Goodwill bust. An arrangement was reached for Young's discovery to be loaned to the San Antonio Museum of Art following its return to Bavaria. It will be shown at the museum until May 2023, at which point it will be shipped back to Europe.
"I felt he deserved to be seen and studied, having been hidden for 70–80 years," Young stated. Even though she is pleased that the public can view the bust, she can't help but miss the sculpture because it has been a part of her life for a long time. I thought he was cute. "I fell in love with him in our home, right there in the foyer. On the TV, his reflection was visible. He integrated himself into the home.