Painting of rearing stallion fetches $US2.5 million

Sir Anthony van Dyck's A Rearing Stallion sold for $US2,546,500 in New York this week.

Sir Anthony van Dyck's "A Rearing Stallion" went under the hammer at Christies in New York on Wednesday.

The price was in line with a pre-auction estimate of $US2.5m to $US3.5m.

The oil-on-canvas work measures 43 inches by 45 inches (109cm by 115.6cm),

The painting had remained somewhat overlooked in Van Dyck scholarship until 1999, when art historian Sir Oliver Millar, upon studying a photograph of the painting, wrote that he was surprised it had been doubted as the work of Van Dyck.

In 2002, he again noted that he was "impressed" by the painting.

Expert Susan Barnes also considers the work to be by Van Dyck, positing that it was painted as an independent work of art, "presumably to show a hoped-for patron".

She dates it to 1620-1622/3, noting that the handling of the landscape is comparable to many of Van Dyck's works from that period.

The pose in the work, in reverse, appears in Van Dyck's equestrian portrait of the Prince of Arenberg at Holkham. Horst Vey and previous authorities believe that two drawings by Van Dyck were preparatory for the picture, one of which is now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York.

Noël Desenfans, the dealer and first recorded owner of the present work, is celebrated today as the creator from 1790, with Francis Bourgeois, of the greater part of the collection of pictures in the Dulwich Picture Gallery.

Richard Payne Knight, who bought it from him, was the foremost English aesthete of his generation and greatly influential, although his reputation was to be tarnished by his criticism late in his life of the Elgin Marbles.

He left a magnificent bequest to the British Museum of antique coins, medals and bronzes and a large number of old master drawings.

His paintings were a less widely known section of the collection he amassed; nevertheless, apart from the present picture, he also owned major works by Rembrandt, Dou, Claude and Mantegna, among others.

Following his death, the painting was then probably on display at Downton Castle, Shropshire; and by descent at Downton Castle and elsewhere.

The painting last sold in 2008, at Christie's in London, for £3,065,250.