[3] There, it was recognised as potentially a van Dyck by presenter Fiona Bruce,[1][4] who had been working with art historian Philip Mould on an episode of another BBC programme (Fake or Fortune?

[1] The painting was restored by Simon Gillespie, who used solvent to remove layers of overpainting, in a process that took the equivalent of three weeks of full-time work.

[6] Its composition is known from a grisaille sketch, in the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris,[7] which van Dyck prepared to show how he planned to lay out the piece.

[1] Another three sketches of magistrates' heads for the same work, with the same red background as MacLeod's painting,[1] are known to exist: two in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and a third which was sold to an unknown buyer.

[2] MacLeod announced his intention to sell it and to use the money to buy church bells, in commemoration of the centenary of the start of the First World War.