Drawing By Famous Artist Found In Queens Thrift Shop

WOODSIDE, QUEENS — A lucky shopper found the bargain of a lifetime in a Queens thrift shop: a rare drawing worth as much as $200,000.

The previously unknown piece by famed Austrian artist Egon Schiele was hidden in a Habitat for Humanity New York City ReStore in Woodside.

The anonymous buyer, a part-time art handler and collector, immediately recognized the drawing's striking similarity to other Schiele works.

The buyer contacted a leading expert on the artist, Jane Kallir of Galerie St. Etienne, to confirm its authenticity, according to a gallery spokesperson.

"We were sent a rather blurry jpg of a drawing that had been purchased at a thrift store," Kallir said. "We did not expect much when, finally, the buyer of this drawing brought it in for us to examine."

Kallir, who has spent over 30 years authenticating work by the expressionist artist, determined the pencil-on-paper study was real.

The thrift store where the artwork was found (Google Maps).

"Based on the fluidity and spontaneity of the line, this drawing is, in my opinion, clearly by the hand of Egon Schiele," she said. "The subject, too, is unmistakably his: a little girl who regularly posed for the artist, alone and with her mother, in 1918."

Other drawings of the same subject are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Leopold Museum in Vienna, according to Kallir.

The study will be on display at Galerie St. Etienne in Manhattan through Oct. 11.

If the piece sells, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Habitat for Humanity New York City.