A painting by Dutch Old Master Johannes Vermeer that was once owned by Irish collector Sir Alfred Beit has been sold for an auction record for the artist of million sterling (€24.29 million).
Fierce bidding for Young Woman Seated At The Virginalsrapidly eclipsed the reserve price of £3 million at the Sotheby's sale. The eventual winner was an anonymous telephone bidder.
Over the last century the painting has moved in and out of the accepted body of works of the Delft-based painter, alternately accepted then rejected by art historians.
But a decade of forensic art detective work including chemical analysis of the paint and pigment and x-rays of the canvas finally persuaded doubters to add the small painting to the 35 others that make up the acknowledged works.
Not only is the pigment in the 25 by 20 cm (9.8 by 7.9 inch) picture identical to that used by Vermeer, but the canvas is exactly the same as that in another of his works , The Lacemaker, which hangs in The Louvre.
It is the first time a Vermeer had been on public sale since 1921.
On that occasion "The Little Street" failed to sell initially and was eventually acquired privately and donated to Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum.
On its own that fact would have given Young Woman Seated At The Virginalsa real rarity value. But added to that, the last recorded private sale of a Vermeer was 49 years ago and all 35 others of his previously acknowledged works hang either in private collections or in the British Royal Collection.
The origin of the painting is almost as obscure as the history of Vermeer himself who lived, worked and died in the picturesque Dutch pottery town of Delft.
It is believed it may once have belonged to Vermeer's chief patron Pieter van Ruijven and that in the early 19th century it may have been owned by Dutch collector Wessels Ryers.
In 1904 it was documented as a Vermeer in the hands of Irish collector Alfred Beit, but shortly afterwards became embroiled in a scandal involving master forger Han van Meegeren who made an industry out of producing and selling fake Vermeers.
Still under a cloud in 1960, Sir Alfred sold the painting and it ended up in possession of Belgian collector Baron Frederic Rolin who saw it in a London dealer's gallery and, 33 years later, showed it to a Vermeer specialist, sparking the forensic investigation.
