Newly Attributed Frans Hals Painting Goes Up for Auction

LONDON—A portrait by Frans Hals once considered by scholars to be a copy of a work hanging in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, and not by the artist, has been declared the genuine article and will go up for auction July 9 at Sotheby's in London, where it is estimated at $6 million to $9 million, reports the New York Times.

An anonymous buyer purchased Portrait of Willem van Heythuysen, Seated on a Chair and Holding a Hunting Crop for $700,000 at an auction in Vienna in 2004, thinking it might be a Hals. The new owner then took it to the director of Sotheby's Old Master painting department, George Wachter, who sent it to Martin Bijl, the former chief conservator of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. After wood testing revealed that the work dates from the 1630s, years before the similar painting in the Brussels museum, and the painting technique was thoroughly examined, the experts concluded that it was also by Hals. Sotheby's will show the work in New York from June 1 through 3.