Builder who bought a Wiltshire junkyard statue for £300 could pocket £100,000 after it proved to be a Trevi Fountain master's work
From the Newshound archive · first published 1 October 2026 · last updated 2 October 2026.
A Wiltshire builder saw what the salvage yard owners had completely overlooked — the battered, weathered figure they had written off as a worthless chunk of concrete was in reality a 290-year-old Italian marble masterpiece. Experts have confirmed it is a maquette of Pope Clement XII by Pietro Bracci, the celebrated sculptor behind the central figure of Rome's Trevi Fountain. Salisbury auctioneers Woolley & Wallis have estimated it at £10,000, though international interest could push the price to £100,000 at next week's sale.
Bracci produced the maquette in 1736 as a small-scale working model for a life-size bronze portrait of the Pope, a commission funded by the Roman Senate.
The original bronze was later melted down, making this marble study the only known surviving example — a rarity that is attracting fierce interest from international buyers.
The builder paid just £300 for the piece; the yard had sourced it from a country house near Andover in Hampshire, its previous owners never having realised the figure was marble at all.