Piece of marble bought for $6 and used as doorstop could be worth millions of dollars

A $6 piece of marble that was used as a doorstop is actually a treasured 18th century bust of a Scottish politician — and could be worth millions of dollars.

The “Bouchardon Bust” — which depicts Scottish landowner and politician Sir John Gordon — was crafted by royal French sculptor Edmé Bouchardon in 1728 while Gordon was touring Rome, according to artnet.com.

For centuries, it sat at the family’s castle in Invergordon, a tiny town in the Scottish Highlands.

The “Bouchardon Bust” was being used as a doorstep. SWNS

But the castle was sold in the 1920s, and the Invergordon Town Council won the bust at an auction in 1930, CNN reported.

Then the artwork disappeared for decades — until an eagle-eyed person spotted it in 1998 propping open the door of a shed in the nearby village of Balintore, the outlet said.

Aside from brief loans to the Louvre in Paris in 2016 and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles a year later, the piece has remained in storage, as Highlands Council officials think it would be too expensive to insure if they publicly display it.

So Tuesday, the Scottish Highlands’ Tain Sheriff Court approved plans to sell the piece — and it could fetch the princely sum of more than $3.2 million, CNN said.

The sculpture depicts 18th century Scottish politician Sir John Gordon and could fetch more than $3 million at auction. SWNS

The Highlands Council already has one offer — an unidentified buyer who got in touch with Sotheby’s auction house last year and threw more than $3 million on the table.

But it’s not clear if the private buyer — who also offered to pay for a museum-quality replica that could be put on display in Scotland — will get the piece if they live abroad.

The relic will almost certainly be subject to a legal process used to figure out whether such items should be considered national treasures, which are barred from being exported overseas.

Any money raised from the bust will be sent to the Invergordon Common Good Fund, which gives grants for local projects, artnet said.