An oil painting by Flemish artist Anthony van Dyck, discovered in a stable four centuries later, is expected to sell at Sotheby’s for $3 million.

The work of Saint Jerome is one of two known studies by Van Dyck for which the artist used a model, and was probably completed between 1615 and 1618, while the then young artist was working as an assistant in his studio. Peter Paul Rubens in Antwerp.

The painting depicts a hunched old man. His body is detailed, and the design was a study for van Dyck’s Saint Jerome (1618–1620), now on display at the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum.

The oil painting was discovered in a barn in Kinderhook, New York in 2002 and bought at auction by local collector Albert M. Roberts. The reverse side of the canvas was reportedly covered in bird droppings.but Roberts was convinced it was a Golden Age work and made it his own for $600.

The authenticity of the work was confirmed in 2019 when art critic Susan Bard called it a “remarkably well-preserved” work by Van Dyck. “The oil sketch,” he wrote, “is an impressive and important find that helps us better understand the method of the artist in his youth.”

The work was donated to Sotheby’s by the Roberts family, who died in 2021. The painting joins a series of European masterpieces that have only recently appeared in the famous auction house.

Portrait of a Man with Pen and Paper (1527), a rare work by Agnolo Brodchino, will go under the hammer after a series of different owners and historically incorrect estimates.

Collector Ilsa Hesselberger acquired the painting in 1927, believing the portrait to be the work of another Florentine artist. During World War II, the painting was confiscated by the Nazis and displayed in various government offices in Germany. Last year, the work was returned to Hesselberger’s heirs, who promoted it at Sotheby’s. There, the work was restored and the hand of its creator, the young Brodchino, was determined. The painting is valued at $5 million.

Up for the same auction is an expressive portrait recently attributed to the Italian painter Titian called Ecce Homo. The work should not be confused with the artist’s massive 1543 composition of the same name, exhibited at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The unfinished work was written with an impressionistic “ardor”, characteristic of the late period of Titian’s work, depicting Christ in the crown of thorns in front of Pontius Pilate. It is expected that its price will be from 1.5 to 2 million dollars.

The auction also includes three works by Giadomenico Tiepolo, created around 1757 and representing a set of fantastic portraits of the Greek philosophers Demosthenes, Socrates and Aristotle.

Source Artnet News