Dismissed as a Copy for Decades, This Flemish Masterpiece Could Now Fetch Thousands | Smart News

After careful study, researchers now argue that a painting bought by an art historian more than 50 years ago might be the work of Flemish Baroque artist Anthony van Dyck himself, reports Dalya Alberge for the Observer. The owner, art historian Christopher Wright, says it could be worth around $54,000.

In 1970, Wright was a young academic working for little pay at a London library. After earning some extra cash, he decided to splurge on what he thought was another artist’s copy of a van Dyck portrait of Isabella Clara Eugenia, the Catholic sovereign who ruled the Spanish…