A PAINTING purchased for £400 in a Nantwich antiques shop turned out to be a Van Dyck masterpiece worth ten times as much.
The portrait, estimated at £400,000, was identified by Antiques Roadshow presenter, Fiona Bruce, after its owner, Father Jamie MacLeod, took it to be valued at Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire.
It will be revealed tonight, December 30, as the most valuable painting in the show’s 36-year history.
Fiona Bruce, who recently made a TV programme about Anthony van Dyck, thought it might be a genuine work by the Flemish master and had it examined.
Van Dyck was the leading court painter in 17th Century England.
The picture shows a Brussels magistrate, and is thought to be a fragment of a larger work painted in 1634.
While the main painting was destroyed in 1695, the fragment survived and found its way to Nantwich, where it was purchased by Father MacLeod.
Father MacLeoad intends to sell the painting to pay for restoration of church bells within the chapel of a retreat that he runs.
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