Conservation work carried out by the art restorer Simon Gillespie has returned the portrait, which belongs to Glasgow Museums, to its original state. An analysis of the alterations through cleaning and x-ray demonstrated that the painting could not be a copy, but was Rubens’s lost masterpiece. Beneden concluded that the portrait was a “rare addition to Rubens’s portrait oeuvre, showing how he approached the genre”. It was known that Rubens had painted a portrait of Buckingham in about 1625, but the work had been regarded as lost by art historians for almost 400 years. ”The rediscovered Rubens painting will go on display at Glasgow Museums’ flagship gallery, Kelvingrove, on Thursday, after the BBC4 programme has aired.

Source: The Guardian September 24, 2017 10:28 UTC