Portrait Of A Lady, a 17th-century masterpiece that spent 139 years in a family collection, has an estimate of £2.5m to £3.5m.
A painting could fetch millions of pounds at auction today after"100 years of dirt and old varnish" were removed - revealing it to be a 17th-century masterpiece.
The Rubens painting, which had spent 139 years in a family collection, is valued at £2.5m to £3.5m and will go under the hammer at Sotheby's in London tonight. Portrait Of A Lady was exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in 1902 as a work by the Dutch painter, but its origins had been"forgotten about", Andrew Fletcher, Sotheby's head of department for Old Master paintings, said.It was sold for £78,000 in 2017 but was catalogued at the time as being from Rubens' workshop, meaning it was thought to have been painted by one of his assistants around 1625, possibly overseen by the Old Master himself.
The anonymous buyer - who is now selling the work - had a hope it was the real thing so he bought it and took it to Sotheby's for experts to assess.Mr Fletcher said the painting was quite dirty at first - but, once it was cleaned,"this rather wonderful Rubens was revealed". He added:"It's one of those moments that you have a couple of times a year when you walk in, and you just have this wonderful instant reaction of glee."
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