A foreign buyer purchased a painting described as a lost Caravaggio masterpiece, two days before it was to be auctioned Thursday in Marc Labarbe Auctions in Toulouse, France.
Per the terms of the deal, the identity of the buyer and the selling price cannot be disclosed. The buyer, a private collector, plans to show the painting in a major museum, according to French publication La Tribune de l’Art.
“We received an offer that could not be ignored and which we communicated to the owners of the painting,” said Eric Turquin, the Parisian Old Master dealer and appraiser who authenticated the painting, in a statement. “The fact that the offer came from someone close to an important museum convinced the sellers to accept.”
At the auction, the painting was expected to sell for between €100 million and €150 million ($113.8 million–$170.7 million).
The painting was found under an old mattress in the attic of a house in the French city of Toulouse, in 2014.
The painting depicts a biblical scene of a Jewish widow Judith beheading a sleeping Assyrian general Holofernes.
