Christopher Wright bought a painting for about 77 euros in 1970. The work, a supposed copy of the portrait of the Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia de Anton van Dyck, had since hung in the living room of his house. Half a century later, this British art historian has discovered that could be an original work by the flamenco master, valued at around 50,000 euros.
As Wright told ‘The Guardian‘, bought the painting for £ 65 in London years ago, convinced that it was a copy. Now, he estimates it could be worth around £ 40,000, although some of the painter’s works have been sold for even larger sums.
The historian took a closer look at the work, after decades on a wall in his home, as a result of the Colin Harrison’s visit, Senior Curator of European Art at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, who told him that he believed Van Dyck himself might have painted it.
Then, according to the British newspaper, its owner took the work to the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, where it has been examined and restored.
This institution notes that Van Dyck and his workshop produced many of these portraits of the infanta, so it can be very difficult to determine to what extent the painter’s assistants participated, and concludes in its report with the “tentative” proposal that the work “can be attributed to Van Dyck’s workshop and that it was completed during his lifetime and under his supervision. “
Wright is convinced that the painting, which could have been painted between 1628 and 1632, is not a copy, given the skillful execution of the infanta’s hands. Now, you are going to lend it permanently to a museum.
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