The $34.99 Goodwill bust that turned out to be a Roman portrait missing since World War II

If you found a marble head beneath a table at Goodwill for $34.99, would you know what to do if it turned out to be stolen?

Laura Young, an Austin, Texas, art and antiques dealer, had to find out after buying one in 2018. According to the San Antonio Museum of Art, the bust was a Roman portrait that dates from the late first century B.C. or early first century A.D. and once belonged to the collection of King Ludwig I of Bavaria. Bavaria’s palace administration says it had been considered missing since World War II. “Immediately, I was like, ‘OK, I cannot keep him and I also cannot sell him,’” Young told The New York Times.

This article explains how a Goodwill find became a Roman bust restitution case, what is still unknown about how it reached Texas, and what to do if you find an antique that may be stolen. It draws on reporting by KUT, The New York Times and The Art Newspaper, and on records from the museum and the Bavarian palace administration.

How did a Goodwill bust turn out to be a missing Roman portrait?

Auction-house experts matched it to the collection of a Bavarian king. Young took the bust home with a seat belt across it in the passenger seat, KUT reported. She suspected the marble was genuinely old and began contacting academics and auction houses. Bonhams confirmed that it was an ancient Roman work, and Sotheby’s consultant Jörg Deterling identified it as coming from the collection of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, according to a San Antonio Museum of Art account of the discovery. The Bavarian Palace Administration further authenticated the identification, the museum said. KUT reported that an auction house also found the head in a catalog of a German museum’s holdings from the 1920s and 1930s, where it was listed as a portrait bust of Drusus Germanicus.

A catalog of Ludwig’s collection shows the portrait was in Munich by at least 1833, the museum said. It later stood in the Pompejanum in Aschaffenburg, Germany, a one-to-one reproduction of a villa from ancient Pompeii. The Bavarian Palace Administration says the Pompejanum was built between 1840 and 1848 as a model of a Roman villa open to everyone, meant for studying ancient culture.

A 1931 photograph shows the portrait at the Pompejanum. The museum describes it as the last time the work was photographed in Aschaffenburg.

Who the man is remains less certain than who owned the bust. The work was long described as a portrait of Drusus Germanicus, also known as Drusus the Elder (38 to 9 B.C.), a Roman commander. The Bavarian administration says the identity is unclear. The San Antonio Museum of Art said some details, including the curling forelock and furrowed brow, resemble portraits of Pompey the Great, the general defeated in civil war by Julius Caesar. The museum added that the “traditional beard of mourning” was worn by Pompey’s sons, so the sitter may be his son Sextus Pompey. The museum titled the work Portrait of a man.

How did the Roman bust get from Germany to Texas?

No one knows for certain, and no public evidence identifies the thief. The Bavarian Palace Administration’s history of the object gives the most precise account. The administration says the portrait stood in the Pompejanum until it was moved because of the war in spring 1945, and that it was stolen from a building in the Schönbusch landscape park in Aschaffenburg shortly afterward.

The museum’s exhibition page says Allied bombers seriously damaged the Pompejanum and the portrait disappeared. It says that after the war the U.S. Army set up installations in Aschaffenburg, and a returning soldier most likely brought the sculpture to Texas. That remains a hypothesis. Stephennie Mulder, an art history professor at the University of Texas at Austin, told KUT a soldier may have looted it or bought it from someone who had.

It is also unknown who later owned the bust or who donated it to Goodwill. Goodwill told Young it does not keep records of who donated items, KUT reported.

Why was the Roman bust returned to Germany and not Italy?

The documented ownership pointed to Bavaria, not Italy. The Roman Empire spanned parts of modern Turkey, Spain, Egypt, Greece and Tunisia, so without a known excavation site Italy is only one possibility, museum curatorial fellow Lynley McAlpine wrote. She noted that Ludwig made many purchases on the art market of his day, often in Italy itself, and that “there is no evidence that this particular artwork was looted from Italy.” Because records place the bust in Munich by at least 1833 and none show it was legally exported after 1931, she wrote, the German state is its most recent legal owner.

Young could not treat the find as an ordinary resale. She hired New York art lawyer Leila Amineddoleh, who told The Art Newspaper that “US law doesn’t recognize the transfer of title when theft is involved.” The exact terms of the deal are confidential, KUT reported. According to The Art Newspaper, Amineddoleh negotiated for Bavaria to cover storage, insurance, crating and shipping, pay Young a finder’s fee and allow the museum to display the piece.

Under the agreement, the museum displayed the sculpture from May 4, 2022, through May 21, 2023. The Bavarian administration said it welcomed the bust back to the Pompejanum on July 6, 2023, about 78 years after it was stolen.

What should you do if you find a possibly stolen antique?

Get expert opinions and a lawyer before selling. Young’s route offers a model: she consulted University of Texas at Austin experts and auction houses, then hired an art-law attorney. Amineddoleh told The Art Newspaper she advised Young not to sell the bust publicly or privately, warning that Young risked expensive legal battles or criminal penalties if she did. The FBI maintains a searchable National Stolen Art File and asks anyone with information about a listed piece to submit a tip at tips.fbi.gov.

Young’s Goodwill purchase returned a documented survivor of ancient Rome, royal collecting and wartime loss to its former home. The price tag said $34.99. The bust, as it turned out, was never Young’s to sell.