Van Dyck masterpiece lay hidden beneath dirt
To go on display in the UK for the first time
An art expert has spoken of how he rediscovered an Anthony Van Dyck portrait that had been hidden behind layers of dirt.
The painting, A Portrait of a Young Girl, was listed by Christie’s as part of a Paris house sale last year as being by an unidentified artist of the Flemish school. It had an estimate of between €15,000 and €20,000.
Philip Mould realised there was more to it than met the eye however, and undertook painstaking research before securing the artwork, which had been stolen by the Nazis in the World War II and later returned to its original owners, the Rothschild family.
The painting, which Mr Mould bought for €1,017,000 – more than 50 times its upper estimate – is now to go on display in the UK for the first time. Mr Mould said he had realised the girl identified as being the subject of the painting, Princess Henriette of France, could not be the sitter as she was born in 1609, and would therefore have been too old. The portrait dates from 1630 to 1634. Mr Mould said: “What I was certain of however was that beneath the dirt –what I surmised was half a century of cigar and cigarette smoke generated at the Rothschild’s Parisian soirees – lay a genuine masterpiece.”