Dusty painting worth many times $900 asking price

A London ophthalmologist liked what he saw in a Lexington antique shop and paid $900 for a landscape painting. Dr. Jim Huffman took two weeks to decide and finally paid a little at a time to buy to 30-by-40 inch painting on layaway.

He told the Lexington Herald-Leader it was so dirty that he took it to a Cincinnati restoration expert for cleaning. Huffman said when the artist's name was uncovered, it was Robert Scott Duncanson, a noted 19th-century African-American painter.

The restoration expert appraised the work at $100,000. Antique shop owner Dennis Pigg said he bought the painting at a northern Kentucky estate sale a few months earlier.