A worn-out antique painting hung in Basil Hendry’s old plantation style home in Baton Rouge for decades. His family would walk by it regularly and not pay much attention to it. Upon his death, no one in his family desired to have the old painting, so it was sold at an estate auction for around $1,100.

The painting was taken to Dianne Modestini, a painting conservator in New York City, to be restored. She slowly began to take acetone and remove varnish and paint that others had used to touch up the painting through the years, and then sat back in disbelief as the original work of art began to appear before her eyes.