Small painting that French woman kept in kitchen sells for $26.8 Million

A 13th century painting that had been hanging on a kitchen wall in French woman's home sold for $26.8 in auction this weekend. The painting, titled "Christ Mocked," is by Florentine artist Cimabue (Giotto's teacher), and was made around 1280.

From Smithsonian Mag:

[Auctioneer Philomine] Wolf spotted the painting, titled "Christ Mocked," on display between the woman's open-plan kitchen and living room. While she immediately suspected it was a work of Italian primitivism, she "didn't imagine it was a Cimabue."

Wolf turned to Eric Turquin, a Paris-based art historian who had previously identified a painting unearthed in a French attic as a long-lost Caravaggio. According to Benjamin Dodman of France 24, Turquin and his colleagues concluded with "certitude" that the new find was a genuine Cimabue.