Mysterious Caravaggio sold privately for possible $100 million

French auction magazine La Gazette Drouot wrote on Tuesday that a Caravaggio famously found in a Toulouse attic had been sold to a private buyer two days before a much-anticipated auction was due to take place.

The magazine wrote that the sensational artwork went to a "foreign buyer" who has "promised to present the painting to a major museum" and speculated that it was sold for between $100 million and $150 million (€88-132 million).

The sale is just one more secretive chapter in the story of a painting shrouded in mystery.

The painting depicts the biblical story of Jewish heroine Judith beheading the Assyrian general Holofernes, thus stopping him from destroying the Jewish city of Bethulia.

It was found, covered in dust, in a home in the southern French city of Toulouse. The owners have requested anonymity since the discovery in 2014.