The £3 million Van Dyck painting going under the hammer with a unique buy-one-get-one-free offer

Buy an old master, get an old master free

Savvy as they are in their marketing, I don't ever remember the great auction houses of Britain getting involved in 'buy one, get one free' offers.

Yet Christie's are offering pretty much exactly that in their Old Masters Part I Sale, which takes place in London on December 3rd.

That's because one of the finest lots, Anthony Van Dyck's An Andalusian Horse, carries on its reverse a landscape painting on the reverse of the canvas — the only landscape he ever painted which still survives.

'It was only discovered when the later ‘relining canvas’ was removed during restoration, following the picture’s sale in 2000,' Christie's experts explain.

As nice as the bonus picture is, the main picture itself is a real landmark, with an estimate of £2-3 million.

'An Andalusian Horse was painted shortly before van Dyck left Antwerp for Italy in the autumn of 1621,' according to the notes of Clementine Sinclair, Christie’s Head of London Old Master Paintings.

'It was executed in preparation for the artist’s equestrian portrait of Emperor Charles V, circa 1621, now in the Uffizi, Florence, which is the earliest surviving work in a genre that hastened the artist’s reputation as one of the most sought-after portraitists in Europe during the first half of the seventeenth century.'

As for the landscape? Van Dyck is known to have painted several, but all have been lost over the years. You can see more at the auction page here.

Quiz of the Day

1) What type of bird is a shoveler? 2) On which island did the Durrell family live for four years in the 1930s? 3) Excluding jokers, how many playing cards are in a standard pack? 4) Skimming Stone, Dead Salmon, Mole’s Breath, Mizzle and Nancy’s Blushes are all names of what? 5) Which town is nicknamed ‘the lang toun’?

Answers down below

Art really has gone bananas

Which of the following this is stranger?

Maurizio Cattelan’s artwork Comedian consists of nothing more than a banana duct-taped to a wall.

Comedian has just sold at auction for $6.2 million.

The new owner won't even have the artwork installed; instead, crypto millionaire Justin Sun will simply receive a banana, a roll of duct tape, instructions on how to combine them, and further instructions on 'how to replace the banana'.

Where did trains go to from the world's first station?

Heighington & Aycliffe Station in Country Durham is 'now recognised as the world’s first railway station', writes Jack Watkins in this week's Country Life magazine, adding that recent archaeological evidence shows that it's been in use since 1827. 'Although the term "station" was not in circulation at the time, a newspaper report from that year, found by the Friends of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, showed the structure was fulfilling all the functions later signified by the term.'

That's all good, as is the news that the station's future could now be brighter since it's been named among 155 new entries to Historic England’s updated 'Heritage at Risk' Register.

But it does leave a big question: if this was the first ever station, then presumably there were no others at the time. So where would you have used this station to catch a train to?

You can see the full Heritage At Risk list here.

Squirrelling away the best pictures of the year

The Red Squirrel Survival Trust has released a 2025 calendar to help them in their quest to protect the estimated 71,750 wild red squirrels in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It features lots more pictures like the two you see above and at the top of this page — visit www.rsst.org.uk/store to pick up yours.

That's it for this week — we're back on Monday

QUIZ ANSWERS 1) Duck 2) Corfu 3) 52 4) Farrow & Ball paint colours 5) Kirkcaldy