BBC online gallery helps in identifying Van Dyck painting

A previously unknown painting by the 17th century artist Anthony Van Dyck has been identified after being spotted on the BBC Your Paintings website by an art historian.

The portrait was previously thought to have been a copy and was in storage at the Bowes Museum in County Durham.

"It's quite clear that this is a late English period Van Dyck. I don't think there's any doubt about that. This absolutely is Van Dyck at his best”, said Christopher Brown, director of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

The portrait depicts Olivia Boteler Porter, lady-in-waiting to Charles I's wife Henrietta Maria.