A builder who bought a marble statue from a reclamation yard for £300 is set to sell it for £100,000 after it was revealed to be the work of an Italian master sculptor.
The 290-year-old Italian marble maquette of Pope Clement XII Corsini was discovered by the eagle-eyed bargain hunter at a salvage yard in Wiltshire.
It had come from a country house near Andover in Hampshire and the yard owners thought the weathered sculpture was made of concrete.
But the savvy collector thought there might be something special about it and his gamble is now set to pay off.
The 26in figure was
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