Family’s Old Painting Turns Out to Be Brueghel, Sells for $845,000

• An oil painting hanging in a family TV room turned out to be 400 years old and sold for $845,000.
• The family that owned the painting, by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, believed it to be a fake.
• The appraiser who spotted it called it the most important find of his career. 

A family in northern France was surprised to find that an old painting hanging in their TV room was a 17th-century masterpiece. It sold at auction last week for 780,000 euros, around $845,000, according to multiple reports. 

The painting, a version of “The Village Lawyer” by the Flemish master Pieter Brueghel the Younger, was discovered after the family invited an appraiser to look over their belongings, according to industry publication The Art Newspaper. The family has not been named.

Malo de Lussac, the appraiser, told The Associated Press he was exploring their home when he saw the painting peeking out behind the door of the dimly-lit TV room. 

The painting, which dates to around 1615 to 1617, had been in the family since 1900, per the AP. They called it “the Brueghel,” but they had long believed it to be a copy. 

But after the painting was taken to Paris, three separate experts verified it as genuine, per The Art Newspaper.

De Lussac called it the most important find of his career, and on March 28 an anonymous buyer picked it up at a Paris auction, the AP reported.

The painting shows a bustling lawyer’s office with people in line with paperwork. According to The Art Newspaper, it is larger than most of the artist’s known work at 44 inches high and 72.4 inches wide.

“The discovery of such a format brings out many details — the dirt under some’s nails and the fear in the eyes of others. It is in great condition,” de Lussac told the paper. 

Pieter Brueghel the Younger was born in Brussels, Belgium, in 1564 and had a thriving business as a copyist of the works of his father, Pieter Brueghel the Elder, who was also a celebrated artist and is known for paintings such as “The Procession to Calvary” and “Netherlandish Proverbs.”

The younger Brueghel also produced original works, which depicted village life, proverbs, and religious subjects.