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"Portrait of a Boy" (left) by Samuel van Hoogstraten and "Self-Portrait as Laughing" by Pietro Bellotti
Photo: - / dpa
Surprising find at a rest area in Middle Franconia: According to the police, a man discovered two oil paintings more than 300 years old in a dumpster on Tuesday.
The 64-year-old had packed the pictures and handed them in to the police in Cologne, the officials said.
The authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia are now trying to solve the art puzzle.
"According to an expert's first assessment, both works are likely to be original works," the investigators said.
One picture ("Portrait of a Boy") comes from the Rembrandt student Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627-1678).
The other, entitled "Self-Portrait Laughing", was painted in 1665 by the Italian artist Pietro Bellotti (1627-1700).
The Cologne police now published photos of the works and asked: "Who knows the paintings shown and / or knows how they got into the dumpster at the service area?"
bbr / dpa