$12 drawing bought at antique store could be a Renoir — and worth a whopping $1M

This lucky woman found a framed and famed treasure.

A Pennsylvania woman believes the $12 drawing she purchased at an antique store could be an original Pierre-Auguste Renoir piece, potentially worth $1 million.

Heidi Markow, owner of Salvage Goods Antiques in Easton, was recently at an auction at an antique store in Montgomery County in January when a drawing of a nude woman caught her eye.

“I didn’t pick it up. I didn’t turn it around. I basically looked at it and I thought, ‘I just want that piece,’” Markow told Philadelphia station WPVI.

She told her partner and son to bid on the 17.5-inch-by-16.5-inch piece and continued wandering around.

Other items at the auction sold for thousands. Her pick went for just $12.

“This piece just stood out to me as something special,” she told ABC News.

And when she inspected the artwork at home, she realized she was probably right.

Markow, a certified art appraiser, noted the antique frame’s “meticulous condition,” the type of paper and a stamp on the back signifying it was brought to the United States by a high-end importer and sold to a prominent collector.

Those clues led the expert to conclude that the faint signature she spotted on the piece belongs to the legendary French impressionist Renoir.

Research has led her to suspect the piece is a portrait of Renoir’s wife, Aline Charigot, dating back to the late 1800s during his Ingres period, when “he paid a lot of attention to light and shading.”

To be sure, she contacted Sotheby’s to be referred to a fellow art appraiser for a second opinion.

“He looked it over and said he agrees with me. So, he said, ‘Congratulations,’ ” she told WPVI.

Markow then reached out to the prestigious Wildenstein Plattner Institute (WPI), an NYC-based non-profit that preserves art history. The team is scheduled to authenticate the piece on April 10, a process she called “rigorous.”

“They’re pretty tough with their examination. I’m cautiously optimistic,” Markow said.

Renoir was an artist credited with co-founding the impressionist movement alongside Claude Monet, best known for depicting Parisian leisure with vibrant colors.

If the piece is verified as an original Renoir, Markow hopes to sell it — for about “six or seven figures” — to someone who appreciates impressionist art and will display it in their home.

“This is what I call a framed masterpiece,” Markow told ABC News.