An early painting by van Dyck, "The Andalusian Horse," painted around 1621, is up for auction at Christie's. In parting, teacher and student exchanged gifts. Van Dyck painted a portrait of Rubens's wife Isabella, and the latter gave him one of his horses.
The 19th century collector Thomas Gambier-Parry claimed that the painting depicted this horse. At first van Dyck planned to depict Charles V on horseback, but left only the image of the horse. He sat the emperor on the same horse in another painting. Moreover, van Dyck later used the back of the canvas with the finished horse for another sketch, a landscape, which is considered to be his only surviving oil work in this genre. Experts discovered this landscape in 2000, when the painting was first auctioned at Christie's. The "double work" is now estimated at £2-3 million. 1 reply
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