OLD MASTER FOR 10s

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 17, 14 October 1933, Page 18

OLD MASTER FOR 10s

Woman’s Lucky Purchase

Five years ago a woman on holiday at Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire, spent an idle half-hour in turning over the stock which a dealer in secondhand materials had stored in a converted stable, and another half-hour in endeavouring to induce the proprietor to accept 5/- for “a dirty little picture,” for which he wanted her to pay 10/-.

The customer pointed to the wretched state of the canvas and the clumsy wooden frame. The . dealer insisted that it was a good picture,. -It .was. A much better picture, in fact, than he knew.

The picture has lately been hung in the Birmingham Art Gallery, acknowledged not'only as a genuine Van Dyck, but as one of the best specimens of that master’s work in existence. Possibly at a sale It would realise some thousands of pounds.

. Even when the lady decided with reluctance to pay the dealer the full 10/- he demanded, the new owner thought so little of her purchase that she relegated it to tlie attic. By chance, and chance only, it was rescued.

"The picture was not even on view in the man’s shop,” said the purchaser. "1 went into the store, which had vgry evidently been used as a

stable, to buy an old willow pattern plate.

“While they were examining the plate I saw tlie old picture in a corner. It was so grimy that little of it could be seen beyond the eyes. These held me, however, because th°v were so expressive. It was for that reason, after much haggling, that I paid the dealer the 10/- he wanted.

“When I took the picture home I thought it might make me look foolish to ask for an expert opinion, so it lay in the attic till I began to get some of my pictures reframed. The framer was so struck'by it that he asked permission to have it cleaned and photographed. A copv of the photograph was submitted to Mr. Kaines-Smith, the curator of the Birmingham Art Galleries, and that is how its real value was discovered.”

“It is one of the most interesting pictures that ever passed through my hands,” said Mr. Kaines-Smith, who is an acknowledged authority on the Flemish masters, “and I was very pleased to get permission to show it to Birmingham, where we have as yet no authentic specimen of this master’s work.”

The picture is labelled “Sir Anthony Van Dyck, Flemish School. Portrait of a gentleman.”