We’ve mentioned the cute story of Federico Castelluccio, the Sopranos actor who found an old master work at a German auction house, who has been working his way toward getting it recognized as a lost Guercino.

The work has been on exhibit in Italy. Now the New York Times announces that it is coming to the US and will be shown in Princeton:

Guercino experts including David Stone, a professor at the University of Delaware, and Nicholas Turner, an independent art historian, have authenticated the piece, which Mr. Castelluccio said he found five years ago at a German auction house; it was labeled an anonymous 18th-century work. It shows St. Sebastian nearly naked and gazing heavenward as blood drips from arrow wounds in his torso.

Mr. Castelluccio and an unnamed co-investor bought it for about $70,000, and its value has been estimated at up to $10 million. He and the co-owner may eventually sell the portrait, he said, ideally to a prestigious institution.

A few of its previous owners have been identified, including the German countess Maria von Maltzan, a Resistance fighter during World War II who hid Jews and other escapees from the Nazis.

Princeton Shows a Rediscovered Guercino Painting (The New York Times)