In late 1952, builders working in the Old Court of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, removed two boards from under an old gas fire and threw them into a skip. The student living in the room, Peter Denyer Hall, asked if he could take them out because he wanted some wood to build a hi-fi unit. When the builders said yes, Hall noticed that the boards formed two halves of an ancient, decayed and badly faded portrait. He took it to Patrick Bury, the college librarian. Bury had the picture photographed, and in March 1953 sent it to the London firm of Holder and Sons for cleaning and restoration.
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