Hanging for more than 60 years on the wall of the office of the administration of the Brussels district of Saint-Gilles in Belgium, the painting turned out to be a lost masterpiece of Jacob Jordaens, an artist of the Flemish school, reports BBC News.
The painting “The Holy Family”, which was considered a reproduction by the administration, was noticed by the staff of the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage during the inventory in 2019. The painting was taken for further study and analysis.
Studies have shown that the canvas was painted in 1617 or 1618. This is the first variation of the painting, later versions of which are kept in the world’s leading museums: in Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Old Pinakothek in Munich.
Joost Vander Auwera, Senior Curator of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, noted that the find not only helped to accurately date Jordaens’s early works, but also allowed tracing the history of one of his most significant paintings. He added that the wood panel on which the painting was painted was made from wood that was used in the works of another Flemish painter, Anthony van Dyck. Auvera suggested that both artists were working in Rubens’ workshop at the time.
The painting will be under restoration for a year and then, at the end of 2021, it will appear in one of the largest collections of Jacob Jordaens in the world – in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Belgium.
Earlier it was reported that an employee of a thrift store from the US city of Kitty Hawk , North Carolina, found a painting of Salvador Dali among the goods that arrived in the store. It turned out to be a watercolor based on The Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri .