A painting of skaters which was stashed in a cupboard in Aberdeen for more than a decade, has been identified as a 224-year-old Dutch artwork worth £8,000.
The owner inherited the picture from her mother and put it away for safekeeping, then forgot about it until earlier this year.
She took it to a valuation event at a stately home run by auctioneers Lyon and Turnbull, whose experts immediately identified it as a rare work by Dutch painter Hendrik Meyer the Younger, dating back to 1790.
The artist’s work features in collections around the world, including the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Royal Museum of Fine Art in Brussels.
The owner, who wishes to remain anonymous said yesterday: “The picture used to hang in my family’s home in London.
“Mum moved up to Aberdeen to stay with me as she got older and she brought the painting with her.
“After mum died I placed the picture in a cupboard for safe keeping.
“The more you look at the painting the more little details you see and that is why my mother loved it so much.
“She died over 10 years ago and we had forgotten about the painting when we read about the Lyon and Turnbull valuation day at Haddo House.
“We were surprised when we were told it was worth up to £8,000.
“I was amazed at the value.”
Meyer, a painter, decorator, draughtsman and printer, was admitted to the Drawing Academy of Amsterdam in 1764 at the age of 20. He settled in Haarlem four years later and opened a workshop which produced decorative wall paintings for interiors.
The 17x24in painting, which depicts skaters on a frozen canal, probably in Haarlem, will go under the hammer at Lyon and Turnbull’s sale of British and European Paintings on Thursday.