Woman Buys 2,000-Year-Old Roman Bust for $34.99 at Goodwill
An ancient Roman bust from around the first century that had been missing for decades has finally made its way into the San Antonio Museum of Art, and all it took was for one artist to buy it from a Texas Goodwill for under $40.
Laura Young was at a Goodwill in Austin, Texas, in 2018 when she found a bust under a table. At $34.99 it seemed like a good deal, so she bought it.
After buying the bust, Young noticed it looked very old and worn. Over the next couple of years, Young consulted with experts in art history at the University of Texas at Austin and those at auction houses across the United States looking for answers. Eventually, Jörg Deterling, a consultant for the fine arts brokerage Sotheby's, identified the bust as a piece that was once in a German museum decades ago, and connected her with German authorities.
Turns out, the sculpture is from late first century B.C. to early first century A.D. The museum believes it depicts a son of Pompey the
Great, who was defeated in civil war by Julius Caesar, while The Art Newspaper reported the bust is believed to depict Roman commander Drusus Germanicus.
No one is quite sure of how the bust went from being nearly destroyed to the Austin Goodwill, but the museum noted the U.S. Army established bases in Aschaffenburg that were in use until the Cold War, so a Texas soldier likely took it before returning home.
(2022/Archaeology News)
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