A 500-year-old engraving by Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer – found at a tip by an 11-year-old boy – could make thousands of pounds at auction.
Mat Winter, now 24, from Cranbrook in Kent, said he was first “drawn” to the level of detail in the work, but was not aware of its value until taking it to a specialist as an adult.
It is being offered at Rare Book Auctions in Lichfield, Staffordshire, in an auction that ends on Wednesday, with a guide price of £10,000 to £20,000.
The auctioneers’ director, Jim Spencer, told BBC Radio Kent that when he first saw the engraving, he “staggered back because the level of detail was extraordinary, the quality was exceptional”.
Dürer, born in 1471, was a major painter and printmaker who introduced Renaissance art to Germany and northern Europe.
The engraving, titled Knight, Death and the Devil, is signed and dated “1513. AD”.
Mr Winter said he saw the work in the back of a woman’s car while at the rubbish dump as a child, and asked her if he could take it.
“It’s got so much detail to it, and something told me that’s worth something but I never really knew what,” he said.
“I kept it 13 years and then…I got in contact with a specialist.”
Mr Spencer, who compared the engraving with those within the British Museum’s collection to authenticate it, said he had previously auctioned items that had been destined for landfill.
“I’ve had a Harry Potter book that was thrown out by a school and salvaged in poor, tatty condition and it still made £30,000,” he said.
“I guess the person that owned [the Dürer] had no admiration for it and that’s why they were taking it to the tip and Mat, good on him with his eagle eye, saw its potential significance and rescued it.”
He added that there was “every possibility” a museum could bid for the work.
