Drawing bought at an estate sale for $30 could fetch as much as $50 million

A Massachusetts man who bought a drawing of a woman and child for $30 at an estate sale four years ago has learned it may be worth as much as $50 million.

The man, who has asked to remain anonymous, spotted the drawing and the “AD” monogram — the initials of German Renaissance master Albrecht Durer. Although he believed it was highly unlikely that it was the “real thing,” he still thought it was “a wonderfully rendered piece of old art, which justified purchasing it,” according to the Agnews Gallery in London, where it is now on view.

Over the next few years, the man unsuccessfully approached several people to try and sell it. But in 2019, an antiquarian book dealer happened to mention it to Cliff Schorer, a Boston-based businessman and collector. Schorer agreed to look at the drawing, although he assumed it would be, at best, an engraving.

He went to see the owner in his home, and after inspecting the drawing, felt that it could indeed be a genuine Durer, according to Agnews.

Schorer asked the owner’s permission to arrange to have it examined further. To confirm the age of the 6-3/8 inches x 6-7/16 inches linen paper, he brought it to world-renowned paper restorer Jane McAusland.

She confirmed the age and, importantly, the presence of the Trident and Ring watermark, which is recorded on more than two hundred sheets used by Durer throughout his life, according to Agnews. The paper has been referred to in the art history literature as “Durer-paper”.

In October of 2019, Schorer took the drawing to Christof Metzger, chief curator at the Albertina Museum in Vienna and a leading authority on the artist, who confirmed the attribution to Dürer on firsthand inspection, according to Agnews.

Metzger dated the drawing to circa 1503 and suggested that the artist may have used it as a highly finished study for one of his finest watercolors, The Virgin with a Multitude of Animals (1506) in the Albertina.

Giulia Bartrum, a former curator of German Prints and Drawings at The British Museum, also said the piece was authentic, according to Agnews.

The owner learned that an architect who lived in Concord until he died in 2012 had inherited the piece after his grandfather bought it in Paris in 1919.

Agnews has not set a price for the drawing, The Virgin and Child with a Flower on a Grassy Bank, but Schorer believes it could fetch as much as $50 million.