New York Family May Have New Michelangelo Painting

A family in New York may be in possession of an unfinished Michelangelo painting possibly worth $300 million. The painting, which shows Mary holding Jesus after his crucifixion, hung in the Kober family’s Buffalo home until the mid-1970s when their kids accidentally knocked it off the wall with a tennis ball. The Kobers wrapped the painting in a blanket and put it behind the couch, where is stayed for 27 years.

After retiring from the Air Force in 2003, Martin Kober decided to research the family legend than the painting is a Michelangelo. He began calling auction houses, museums and Renaissance scholars. During his research, Kober contacted Italian art restorer Antonio Forcellino. Forcellino was skeptical when he traveled to Kober’s home to look at the painting.

“I had assumed it was going to be a copy,” says Forcellino. “In reality, this painting was even more beautiful than the versions hanging in Rome and Florence. The truth was this painting was much better than the ones they had. I had visions of telling them that there was this crazy guy in America telling everyone he had a Michelangelo at home.”

“The evidence of unfinished portions demonstrate that this painting never, never, never could be a copy of another painting. No patron pays in the Renaissance for an unfinished copy,” Forcellino adds.

Michelangelo is believed to have completed the painting 1545 for his friend Vittoria Colonna. It eventually ended up in the possession of a lady-in-waiting named Gertrude Young, the sister-in-law of Kober’s great great grandfather.

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