The piece is a study that Van Dyck made for his painting St Jerome, which is owned by the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam. The work shows a naked elderly man sitting on a stool. It is one of only two large studies that Van Dyck made of living models.
Peter Paul Rubens
It was probably painted between 1615 and 1618, when Van Dyck was still a young artist working with Peter Paul Rubens in Antwerp.
The study has only recently been identified as a work by Van Dyck, the auction house Sotheby’s reports.
The piece was discovered in 2002 in the barn of a farm in the town of Kinderhook, in the US state of New York. The man who found it, Albert Roberts, was a passionate collector of ‘lost’ pieces. He bought the painting, which was in poor condition, for only $600.
After his death in 2021, it has now been auctioned by his heirs. The proceeds go to a foundation that the deceased collector had set up to support artists.
