Billionaire Tom Hill Outed as Buyer of Caravaggio Found in Attic

(Bloomberg) -- Billionaire collector J. Tomilson Hill was the anonymous buyer of a rediscovered painting by Caravaggio, which sold privately this week before a scheduled public auction in France, according to the New York Times.

“Judith and Holofernes,” which depicts a scene from the Old Testament’s Book of Judith, was estimated to sell at auction Thursday for at least 100 million euros ($114 million). On Tuesday, auctioneers Marc Labarbe and Eric Turquin canceled the sale, saying the painting had been bought by a collector for an undisclosed amount.

Hill, 71, recently retired as vice chairman of Blackstone Group LP and collects Old Masters as well as modern and contemporary art. The Times identified Hill as the buyer Thursday, citing a person with knowledge of the sale that it didn’t identify. Works from Hill’s collection were shown in 2014 at the Frick Collection, and this year he opened a private art foundation in Manhattan.

Hill didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Completed around 1607, the unsigned painting was discovered five years ago in an attic in Toulouse, France. Believed to be a study for a later work, the attribution to Caravaggio was supported by American, English, French and Italian specialists, according to the auction house.

To contact the reporter on this story: Katya Kazakina in New York at kkazakina@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net, Steven Crabill, Peter Eichenbaum

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