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OXFORD, England, Nov 13, 2006 (UPI via COMTEX) -- Two paintings by Renaissance artist Fra Angelico that were missing since the Napoleonic era have been found hanging in an Oxford, England, house.
The works belonged to an elderly Oxford woman who died earlier this year and were expected to be worth a combined 1 million pounds ($1.9 million) at auction, The Telegraph said Monday.
The paintings of Dominican saints were part of an eight-panel set that had been commissioned by Italy's famed Medici family for the altar at the Church and Convent of San Marco in Florence in the 1430s.
The paintings were lost during the Napoleonic wars and remained unaccounted for until this year when they were found hanging in the home of the late Jean Preston.
The Telegraph said it appeared that Preston's father had bought them in the United States in the 1960s and passed them on to her when he died in 1974. How they wound up in the United States remained a mystery.
URL: www.upi.com Copyright 2006 by United Press International
