Public debate on online forum led to Walker Gallery painting being confirmed as artist’s own

This article is more than 11 months old

This article is more than 11 months old

A 17th-century portrait of a member of the Spanish royal family, which has always been considered to come from the studio of Anthony van Dyck, has been confirmed as a piece by the artist himself.

The portrait of the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia has been in the collection of Liverpool’s Walker Art Gallery since 1954, when it was gifted by an insurance company.

After a public debate on the online forum, Art Detective, its importance as a painting will now be massively upgraded. It becomes the Walker’s only Van Dyck.

Art Detective was set up by the charity Art UK – which lists every work in every public art collection in the UK – as a way of stimulating public debate and solving art mysteries.

The Van Dyck is its biggest success to date. Andrew Ellis, Art UK’s director, said: “This Van Dyck discovery is an especially important one and unequivocally proves the value of this innovative use of digital technology to share and grow knowledge.”

Investigations around the painting were sparked by old master dealer Fergus Hall, who wrote to Art Detective in 2018 to share his suspicion that the painting was an autograph Van Dyck.

Experts including art historian Bendor Grosvenor and art restorer Simon Gillespie became involved in the growing online discussion.

That led to a visit to the Walker by Susan J Barnes, one of the leading authorities on Van Dyck who wrote the artist’s catalogue raisonné. She judged it a painting by Van Dyck’s hand.

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“It is notably fine in the rendering of the figure in the interior,” she said. “Most important is the compelling likeness. Van Dyck’s depiction of the Archduchess conveys at once the presence of a living human being and of an imposing person, a commanding, international leader.”

The sitter was the daughter of King Philip II of Spain who became joint ruler of the Spanish Netherlands with her husband Archduke Albert in 1598.

Albert died in 1621 and Isabella became governor and joined the Third Order of St Francis, a division of the Franciscan Order for laymen and women.