A painting discovered in the attic of a house in France is an "authentic" painting by the Italian Renaissance master Caravaggio, which could be worth up to €120 million, experts say.
The owners of the house near the southwestern city of Toulouse discovered the 400-year-old painting when they went to fix a leak in the ceiling.
The large canvas of the beheading of 'General Holofernes by Judith' is in remarkably good condition, and was painted between 1600 and 1610, specialists believe.
Expert Eric Turquin says it could be worth as much as €120 million, describing the painting as having "the light, the energy typical of Caravaggio, without mistakes, done with a sure hand and a pictorial style that makes it authentic".
The French culture minister has banned the painting from being exported after experts from the Louvre museum in Paris spent three weeks studying it.
In a statement, the ministry said the painting should stay on French soil "as a very important Caravaggian marker, whose history and attribution are still to be fully investigated".
Mr Turquin says "some serious" art historians "had attributed the work to (Louis) Finson", a Flemish painter and disciple of Caravaggio who died in 1617.
But French art newspaper Le Quotidien de l'Art quotes another expert on the artist, Mina Gregori, as saying that it was "not an original" although she recognised the "undeniable quality of the work".
The painting, which measures 144 cm by 175 cm, was found in April 2014 in the rafters of the house.
