Manhattanite Elizabeth Gibson stumbled upon something other than a hypodermic needle when on a morning walk through the city - a stolen painting by Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo, lying on a pile of garbage. The painting, “Tres Personajes” could fetch up to $1 million (€700,000) at Sotheby’s November 20th Latin American Art auction. Gibson stands to make a percentage of its selling price, in addition to the $15,000 (€10,523) reward the piece’s original owners put out when it was stolen from a Houston warehouse in 1987. It was originally purchased for $55,000 as a present from a husband to his wife. (Ed. note: Intriguing. My boyfriend refuses to even get a little, teeny tattoo of my name across his neck.)

Gibson became aware of the painting’s importance thanks to an “Antiques Roadshow FYI’s” Missing Materpieces segment, submitted by August Uribe, Sotheby’s senior vice president of Impressionist and modern art.

“I would say it was an appointment with destiny,” Gibson said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “I just knew it meant something. … It was extremely powerful, and even though I didn’t understand it. I knew it had power.”

Well, damn. The most interesting thing we ever found in a trash heap was a baby. And those only fetch like, what? $2,000 tops.

Stolen work by Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo, found in NYC garbage, could sell for $1 million [International Herald Tribune]