Woman finds 2,000-year-old Roman bust at a Texas Goodwill for $35

Finding a vintage item that is rare or valuable at a low price can be a thrilling experience for thrift shop aficionados.

What if you discover something that dates back thousands?

That’s what happened to one Texas art collector, when she plucked a marble bust out from under a table at her local Goodwill store and bought it for $35.

Laura Young from Austin, Texas accidentally found the bust while searching for vintage items to sell.

What she didn’t know at the time, however, was that the bust originally resided inside a full-scale model of a villa from Pompeii in Aschaffenburg, Germany, according to the San Antonio Museum of Art.

Pompejanum, also known as the villa, is a recreation of an ancient villa that King Ludwig I of Bavaria built in Germany during mid-1800s.

Once, the bust was in the courtyard of Pompejanum. However, the villa was severely damaged by Allied bombers during World War II and the bust vanished soon thereafter.

Although it is not clear how the bust got to the United States, the museum believes that it was brought back by a soldier from the Cold War.

Hilariously, Young told the New York Times that she named the bust “Dennis Reynolds,” after the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia character — a serial narcissist who possesses off-the-charts vanity.

Young described the sculpture as “a very difficult, cold, aloof, emotionless man that caused some problems for me.”

Young shared with The Art Newspaper her experiences with antiques and vintage objects that led her to believe that this bust was probably valuable.

She secured the bust in her car with the seatbelt and took it home to search for Roman artifacts.

It was confirmed after several phone calls to auction houses: the woman was actually housing an old piece of art.

Young could not claim the title of rightful owner because the piece was stolen in Germany. She was also unable to sell the bust for a substantial profit.

“It was extremely bittersweet, to say the least. I don’t have complete control over everything, but art theft, which is looting during wars, is something I can control. I can’t be a party to it,” Young told The Times.

She will, however, receive a finder’s fee for saving the artifact and returning it to its rightful country.

The 52-pound bust will be first displayed for a year at San Antonio Museum of Art, before being shipped home to Bavaria.

According to the museum, the bust may portray a son of Pompey the Great (106–48 BCE), who was defeated in the Roman civil war by Julius Caesar.