A copy of a painting by a Flemish painter turned out to be a masterpiece of the 17th century

Art historian Christopher Wright, who decades ago acquired a copy of a painting by Flemish painter Antonis Van Dyck, recently realized that it could be the original, reports The Guardian.

We are talking about a portrait of the Spanish Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, which he bought for himself in the 1970s for only 65 pounds.

The painting hung in The Guardian's living room for many years until Colin Harrison, Senior Curator of European Art at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, came to visit him. He was the first to suggest that the portrait might be by Van Dyck and was painted in the first half of the 17th century.

When the art historian took the painting to Colin Harisson, head curator of European art at the Ashmole Museum in Oxford, to get a second opinion, he also suggested that it was by Van Dyck. In his opinion, the authorship gives away the manner in which the model's hands are depicted. "In a strange way I didn't pay attention to it. It's the shoemaker's syndrome without shoes. So the art historian's collection is the most inconspicuous," he said.

The portrait of the Infanta is thought to date between 1628 and 1632. At that time, Antonis Van Dyck worked in England for King James I. Christopher Wright estimates that the portrait of the Infanta could be worth about forty thousand pounds. Although many of Van Dyck's works sold and for seven-figure sums.

Now the owner of the canvas, which for his half-century career has found in the public and private collections a lot of paintings by old masters, including a portrait of George Stubbs, jokes that in spite of the specifics of his work, not noticed a masterpiece in his own house. Now, realizing the value of the painting, he wants it to go to a public institution. Christopher Wright plans to donate the portrait of the Infanta to the Cannon Hall Museum in Barnsley.