A cross dating to the Middle Ages has turned up in a trash bin in Austria, police said on Thursday.
A woman looking for old crockery in a trash container in the western Austrian town of Zell am See stumbled upon the precious piece in 2004, Salzburg police said.
Apparently she had no idea what she had found. She took the cross home and stashed it behind her couch.
PHOTO: AFP
Now experts say the cross could be worth as much as 400,000 euros (US$536,620). A local museum has custody of it, at least for the moment. And whether the trash-foraging woman, who has not been identified, will get so much as a penny for her find has yet to be determined.
She found the cross after a hotel owner who lived in Zell am See died, and his home was being cleared by relatives, the Austria Press Agency quoted police official Christian Krieg as saying.
The woman showed the cross to the niece of the dead man, but the niece didn't want it and allowed the woman to take it, the news agency reported.
Last month, one of the woman's neighbors had an inkling the cross might be something special and took it to a local museum in the village of Leogang.
The curator, Hermann Mayrhofer, alerted police. An investigation revealed that, until World War II, the cross had been part of a Polish art collection belonging to Izabella Elzbieta of Czartoryski Dzialinska.
Before the outbreak of war, Elzbieta tried to hide the piece from the Nazis by concealing it in the cellar of a building in Warsaw.
But the Nazis discovered the cross in 1941 and later brought it, along with other items from Elzbieta's collection, to a castle in Austria. It is unclear what happened next.
This summer, the cross was taken to Vienna for analysis but it has now been returned to the museum in Leogang.
Experts at Vienna's fine arts museum determined that it comes from Limoges, France, and dates to about 1200.
Police said that similar pieces have been auctioned for up to 400,000 euros.
In a telephone interview, Mayrhofer said that he knew straight away that the cross came from Limoges and praised the woman for salvaging it.
"She did something extraordinary," Mayrhofer said.
But he said he couldn't comment on whether the woman would receive any money for her find, adding that the museum would keep the piece until the case is cleared up.
A judge in Zell am See has decided that for now the cross should be kept in the museum security.
Mayrhofer said it would soon be included in a special exhibit at the museum.
The London-based Commission for Looted Art in Europe is representing the heirs of the former owner of the cross, police said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in