March is Membership Month! Enjoy exclusive perks for new and current Hyde members. Learn more

An orphaned masterpiece discovered

I can’t get enough of stories about masterpieces being discovered in the least likely of places. Our friends at Albany Institute of History & Art is exhibiting such a work of art through the end of the year.

A longtime supporter of that museum has made a hobby of searching for artworks he considers “orphans.” Among his discoveries was a $600 painting that had bird droppings on it; it turns out it’s an early work by Anthony Van Dyck  (1599–1641), as confirmed by an expert on the Flemish Baroque artist.

Please go see Study for Saint Gerome with an Angel, ca. 1618–1620, at Albany Institute while it’s exhibited. Here at The Hyde, you can see Van Dyck’s Portrait of Jan Woverius, ca. 1634, in the Library of historic Hyde House.

 

Click here to read more about the painting at Albany Institute.