CANTERBURY, England (RNS) He bought it a dozen years ago at a local antiques shop to help brighten up a Derbyshire retreat home run by his church.
“Magistrate of Brussels” by Anthony Van Dyck, after restoration in 2013.
But when he tried to sell it to buy church bells, the Roman Catholic priest was told by an art expert that the painting, the “Magistrate of Brussels,” in a large gold varnished frame that he’d bought for about $575 at the time, was the work of the great 17th-century Flemish artist Anthony Van Dyck.
“It’s been an emotional experience and it’s such great news,” the Rev. Jamie MacLeod said after being told the painting was valued at about $660,000.
It’s a story that has stunned the art world and encouraged amateur collectors the world over to take another look at what’s hanging on their walls.
The sensational discovery was made by journalist Fiona Bruce who presents the popular weekly TV series, “Antiques Roadshow” where art experts put a cash value on family heirlooms and little regarded family treasures often hidden away in spare rooms and attics.
Bruce identified MacLeod’s painting as a possible Van Dyck original in June.
She’d been working alongside art expert Philip Mould on a planned TV series about the Dutch master who was the most famous of all court painters during the turbulent reign of the English monarch, King Charles I (1625-1649).
Following detailed restoration work, the painting was verified as a Van Dyck original by one of the world’s authorities on that painter, Christopher Brown.
MacLeod said selling the painting was “a very difficult decision” but that it would help him with his ambition to install new church bells to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I.
YS/AMB END GRUNDY