Hudson's Bay painting with mysterious past sells for $217,250 in auction

An oil painting of Prince Rupert painted by Sir Peter Lely hangs on the wall of Heffel Gallery in Toronto, on Wednesday April 8 2026.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

TORONTO — A Prince Rupert painting with a mysterious backstory has sold for $217,250 in an auction.

The 361-year-old portrait was once owned by collapsed department store Hudson’s Bay Co., which has hired Heffel Fine Art Auction House to sell its 4,400 pieces of art and artifacts.

For most of its life, the portrait of HBC’s first governor, Prince Rupert, was believed to have been painted by the studio of Flemish portraitist Anthony van Dyck.

But when Heffel was preparing to sell the work last November, it wondered how a piece that looked so masterful could be attributed to van Dyck’s studio assistants.

Heffel temporarily pulled the painting from the auction and called on art history experts across Canada and Europe to help with an investigation.

They eventually found enough proof in centuries-old records to reattribute the painting to famed Dutch portraitist Peter Lely.

The reattribution pushed the painting’s estimated value from a few thousand dollars to $150,000. Auction house estimates are typically conservative and pieces frequently sell for well above expectations.

Heffel does not identify buyers of pieces it sells.

The Prince Rupert painting’s purchase price of $217,250 includes the hammer price of $180,000, plus the buyer’s premium.

The premium is 25 per cent of the hammer price up to and including $25,000, plus 20 per cent of the hammer price over $25,000 and any applicable sales tax.

The painting was sold at live auction in Toronto’s ritzy Yorkville neighbourhood, where pieces from Jean Paul Riopelle, Emily Carr and the Group of Seven were also on offer.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 22, 2026.

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press