List of 8 Awesome Re-Discovered Artworks That Made Someone Rich

In today's world, finding a hidden treasure is tougher than ever. But every once and a while, you hear of someone making an enormous profit on something they bought for scraps at a garage sale.

These often make the news, and they certainly grab attention, when they are works of art by some of art history's elite. We composed a list of the top 8 hidden treasures of the past 15 years:

December, 2012: $100,000 painting found in attic

According to HP:
"Jane Cordery, an art teacher in Hampshire, discovered the detailed bird portrait in her attic after attempting to clean the space for a plumber. She'd never seen the ornate owl, but the painting's intricate brushwork caught her eye and she decided to e-mail a photograph of the find to Christie's auction house.

According to the Daily Mail, One look at the owl and art expert Brandon Lindberg knew that that the work was worth much more than anyone suspected.

The auction house determined that the painting, titled "The White Owl," was created by pre-Raphaelite artist William James Webbe, and experts valued the work at ?70,000 ($113,449).

Beyond the British masterpiece's hefty price tag, it was also revealed that the UK's Royal Society had exhibited the owl in the mid 19th century, exposing the piece to leading art critic, John Ruskin, who described it as "a careful study" with excellent brown wings."



June, 1999: $1.5M painting purchased at garage sale for $20

According the New York Times:
"'Magnolias on Gold Velvet Cloth'' by the 19th-century American painter Martin Johnson Heade, was sold by a man in his 30's who works at a tool-and-die company.

He started to realize the value of the work in January when he played Masterpiece, a board game about art that includes an image of a similar Heade.

Intrigued, he turned to the Internet, found that Kennedy Galleries in Manhattan handled Heade's work and sent an E-mail asking if his painting might be by that artist.

He then sent digital images of it to Kennedy, which had the painting authenticated and made the match with the Houston museum."

April, 2010: $2M Early Warhol bought at garage sale for $5

According to Daily Mail:
"A businessman claims he bought an Andy Warhol sketch worth ?1.3million for just $5 at a garage sale - and only discovered it by chance.

Andy Fields, 48, said he purchased the work of art from a drug user whose aunt used to care for Warhol when he was a child.

The illustration - from the late 1930s - is believed to have been drawn by the artist when he was 10 or 11."

March, 2013: $30M of art discovered in property purchase

According to The Inquisitir:
"Two men found $30 million worth of art headed for the garbage when they bought a run-down investment house, getting a fortune for themselves and helping the now-deceased artist get the recognition he always craved.

The bungalow was purchased by Thomas Schultz and his friend Larry Joseph back in 2007.

They had planned on renovating the property, but inside they found thousands of paintings and drawings from Armenian-American artist Arthur Pinajian, who died in 1999 at age 85."

June, 2011: $80M Caravaggio found in anonymous collection

According to The Gaurdian:
"A leading scholar, Sebastian Schutze, professor of art history at the University of Vienna and one of the book's co-authors, called the work a significant discovery.
He said: "It has never been published.

What looked like an anonymous 17th-century painting revealed its artistic qualities after restoration."

The painting fits in to Caravaggio's oeuvre around 1600, when his style was sculptural and monumental, with powerful movement and emotional expression."



November 2010: $83M Chinese Vase Found in London Attic

According to Herald Sun:
"The 18th -century Chinese antique was found during a -routine clear-out of a dusty attic in a three-bed semi-detached house on the outskirts of London.

The owners, a brother and sister who were clearing out their late parents' modest home in suburban Pinner, West London, had to be taken out of the auction room in shock as frenzied bidding lasted half an hour.
It ended with the hammer coming down at ?51.6 million ($83.5 million) - which includes the buyers' premium - sold to an unknown Chinese purchaser."



July 2011: $120M Da Vinci bought for $2,000 at auction

According to Daily Mail:
"A person close to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York who asked not to be identified said: 'The painting was forgotten for years. When it turned up at auction, Simon thought it was worth taking a gamble.
'It had been heavily overpainted, which makes it look like a copy.

It was a wreck, dark and gloomy.

'It had been cleaned many times in the past by people who didn't know better. Once a restorer put artificial resin on it, which had turned grey and had to be removed painstakingly."



October 2010: $250M Michaelangelo found behind couch

According to TeleGraph:
"After it was accidentally knocked off the wall while being dusted in the 1970s, it was wrapped in a case and stored behind a sofa for 25 years.

Mr Kober only began taking more notice of the painting, which his family affectionately referred to as 'The Mike' after Michelangelo, after he retired in 2002.
He showed it to an Italian art historian, Antonio Forcellino, who became convinced that the work is a painted version of Michelangelo's famous 'Pieta' sculpture in St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican."