Raphael’s Portrait Of A Young Man Found After Mum Has A Proper Look

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

The long-missing Raphael masterpiece Portrait Of A Young Man has been found under the couch of a Betoota Heights project home after the family's mother decided to have a proper look.

The discovery was made on Sunday afternoon after 27-year-old Jason Millstead and his father Greg spent close to an hour searching the house for what Jason described as "that old picture of that bloke" he had misplaced. Both men later told reporters they had checked absolutely everywhere and that the priceless Renaissance artwork was probably lost forever.

Police confirmed that the painting, valued in the hundreds of millions, was located within seconds of Carol Millstead entering the room. Witnesses said she bent down, lifted one corner of the couch and immediately retrieved the work from beside several five-cent coins, joint butts, bottle caps and split, licked out baggies.

Officials from the Polish Ministry of Culture, who have spent more than half a century searching for the painting since it was pinched by Nazis during the Second World War, arrived in Betoota Heights late last night. They declined to comment on how the artwork ended up beneath the seating of a 2003 brick veneer home positioned between a cannabis grow-op and a guy who's tried to reseed his lawn every year since the 2019 drought.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) said there is no indication the Millstead family were involved in wartime looting and that the painting appears to have entered the country through completely unknown pathways. Jason told The Advocate he is just glad Mum found it because that shit is cash and maintains he definitely looked under the couch earlier.

Carol has been praised by neighbours and extended family members, many of whom noted this is not the first time she has located something her husband and son had declared gone forever by simply bending down and actually looking.

They do not plan to sell the artwork or give it up without first consulting their lawyer Brennan Hort Esq.

More to come.