Boy refused to let go of a painting he found in the dumpster. 13 years later, it earned him $44,000
A young boy's peculiar hobby helped him find a 500-year-old masterpiece
What hobbies did you have when you were 11 years old? Drawing, maybe reading stories, or playing a sport, perhaps. However, while most of us were busy doing such activities, 11-year-old Mat Winter, a Cranbrook, Kent native, was scavenging dumpsters in search of hidden treasures others had cast aside. Although almost no one took this habit of his seriously, 13 years later, in 2024, his childhood hobby made the now 26-year-old Winter a good amount of money, with his find turning out to be an Albrecht Dürer engraving, according to a BBC report on September 18, 2024.
A valuable relic
The story of how the then-teenager found this engraving began with him looking for antiques. It was then that Winter spotted something interesting in the back of a woman's car. Without hesitating even once, he asked the woman whether he could take the engraving. She was going to throw it, but thought it would be better to give it to this child. Back then, Winter didn't know anything about the engraving's value. "It’s got so much detail to it, and something told me that’s worth something, but I never really knew what," he told the BBC.
The answer to his question came 13 years later when he decided to take the engraving to an expert and director of Rare Book Auctions, Jim Spencer, who took a good look at the engraving. Upon comparing it to those within the British Museum's collection, he found out it was a 500-year-old engraving by Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer, a major painter and printmaker who brought Renaissance art to Germany and northern Europe.
The engraving was titled the "Knight, Death and the Devil," signed and dated "1513. AD". This was part of a three-master engraving series by the artist, which had similar theological and moral throughlines. The work, which Winter had featured a knight riding a horse as a devil caricature holding an hourglass, was used as a metaphor for how short life is. Upon further inspection by Spencer, he had more good news for Winter.
The true value of the engraving
Winter revealed that the engraving was worth anywhere between $13,400 to $26,900. Obviously, hearing this made Winter jump with excitement. However, surprisingly, the engraving far exceeded these estimates when it was sold for a whopping $44,000 to a private German collector at the sale later that year. While this did end up making Winter a lot of money out of his hobby as a kid, it's also a great reminder of holding on to and taking care of the art that you own.
In fact, this has become more important than ever, according to a study by Sotheby's Institute of Art that revealed that only 5% of the world's artwork will survive the next 100 years. Obviously, a major reason why this will happen is because of people not taking proper care of the artwork and ensuring it stays in its best shape. This is quite concerning, given that we might lose a massive chunk of our history over the next century.
Spencer described the piece as the “most important print” he had ever cataloged, as per Hyperallergic. He added, “I’ve seen countless prints copying Dürer, from a much later period or produced by a different means, but I’d only ever seen the real thing in museums — until now.”
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