Jean Preston's Art Treaures

Preston, a thrifty 77-year-old spinster who rode the bus and ate frozen meals, died in 2006. But art experts and auctioneers have now completed the sale of the exceptional works hoarded in her modest home.

The auctions have raised an estimated 4 million pounds, according to valuers, about 20 times the price of the house they were kept in, stunning experts and Preston’s relatives alike.

Among the treasures were two paintings by Fra Angelico, the 15th century Italian Renaissance master, that were the missing pieces of an eight-part altar decoration.

They were sold together for $3.4 million (1.37 million pounds) and are expected to be returned to the Uffizi Gallery, Florence’s famed art museum.

“We knew we were going to a house that contained some important works,” Guy Schwinge of Dukes art auctioneers in Dorchester, which helped with the sale, told Reuters.

“But I was amazed to see quite how many treasures there were … The Fra Angelicos were behind the bedroom door and we only spotted them on the way out.”

Hanging in the kitchen was a 19th century watercolour by pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and in the sitting room, above an electric fire, a work by Sir Edward Burne-Jones.

Those two, estimated to be worth $2 million, have been saved for Britain and are expected to go on display at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, Schwinge said.

Another hidden treasure was a rare edition of the works of Chaucer that was too big to fit on Preston’s bookshelf and was found buried in a wardrobe. It sold for nearly $150,000.

“We often go to fabulous homes to evaluate artworks, but in this case the house was just so modest from the outside, and had very modest decor on the inside too,” said Schwinge.

“It’s just rare to stumble across something quite so breathtaking.”

Preston, who worked as a librarian for much of her life, inherited many of the works from her father, a keen collector. Her relatives were stunned by the artworks she had tucked away.

“My aunt bought her clothes from a catalogue, ate frozen meals and went everywhere on the bus,” the Daily Mail newspaper quoted one of them as saying.

“Who would have thought she had the equivalent of a winning lottery ticket in her spare room all these years?”

'Noli Me Tangere' by Fra Angelico

In 2006, two small paintings by the Italian Renaissance master Fra Angelico reemerged after 200 years. Missing since Napoleon's invasion of Italy, the mini masterpieces weren't found in a museum, a castle, or even an art thief's attic. They were found hanging in a spare room in the home of Ms. Jean Preston, a retired manuscript librarian in England.

Ms. Preston and her art-collecting father had acquired the paintings for a few hundred dollars in California in the 1960s (no word on how they got there). She had always thought they were special. When she discovered just how special, she was pleased to learn she had "a good eye."

Ms. Preston lived a modest life that ended in 2006. But this week, art experts and auctioneers revealed that her art collection was worth $8 million! The two Fra Angelico works alone fetched $3.4 million. (Yes, Ms. Preston owned other valuable art, too.) Both Fra Angelicos are now expected to head home to Italy, to Florence's famed Uffizi Gallery.

With that in mind, we want to know, who was Fra Angelico, this "Angelic Friar"? He was no bohemian. In fact, Pope John Paul II set Fra Angelico on the path to sainthood in 1982, beatifying him "because of the perfect integrity of his life and the almost divine beauty of the images he painted." Art historians tend to see him in a different perspective--as key to the development of Italian Renaissance forms and techniques.