thrift store

Texas Woman Buys Priceless Artwork From Thrift Store

Suspecting that she was looking at something very special, a Texas woman purchased an old bust from an Austin area Goodwill for $34.99 and took it home for further examination. The thrift store find turned out to be a unique ancient Roman portrait of one of Julius Caesar’s most implacable enemies. How the priceless work of art made its way into a Texas Goodwill is something of a mystery, but it has now finally been made available for public viewing.

Thrift store find was lost Roman portrait

Antiques dealer Laura Young, who made the spectacular thrift store discovery in 2018, says that she is pleased to see the piece on display in a museum but will miss having it in her living room.

She chose to have it displayed at the San Antonio Museum of Art until May 2023 as part of an agreement with the German government.

The bust, believed to depict Roman rebel leader Sextus Pompey, was once owned by the eccentric King Ludwig I of Bavaria, who displayed it in the replica villa that he constructed to host his collection of Roman art.

The building was badly damaged in World War II and the bust of Sextus vanished, likely being looted from the museum and then taken back to the United States by an American soldier.

Young spent several years consulting experts  before it was determined that the bust was indeed a authentic piece from the time of Caesar Augustus and that it was the one that had been taken from Bavaria.

Only one other portrait of Sextus Pompey is  known to exist; that one resides in the Louvre in Paris, quite a step up from an Austin thrift store.

One of only two known

Sextus Pompey was an important player in the last days of the Roman republic, but contemporary depictions like the Texas bust are rare.

His father, Pompey the Great, was one of Rome’s greatest generals until he was defeated by his former friend and ally Julius Caesar. After Pompey was assassinated in Egypt against Caesar’s wishes, Sextus continued the fight with other republican forces.

After Caesar was assassinated, Sextus Pompey took control of the island of Sicily and established himself as a kind of pirate king, ultimately becoming the last major republican holdout after Mark Antony and Octavian secured control over the Roman world.

Octavian finally managed to defeat Sextus after a series of difficult wars. The defeated general escaped but was later killed by one of Octavian’s allies.

Octavian went on to become Caesar Augustus, and unlike his father and other republican leaders Sextus Pompey’s image was not rehabilitated under the new regime. He does, however, appear as an important character in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra.

Someone was apparently fond enough of Sextus to commission a portrait even under the rule of the man who defeated him. Whoever that was, they never could have imagined that the bust would one day be found in a thrift store on a continent that didn’t even exist in their mind.

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