[1] In July 2010 it was sold for £9 million by Christie's[2] after Sotheby's turned it down, suspecting its authenticity as a Rubens.

The identity of the commander is unknown, although Charles V,[5] Cornelis van der Geest,[citation needed] and the Duke of Alba[2] have all been identified as possible subjects.

The Christie's cataloguer felt that the commander appears too idealized to be an actual person.

[6] This is the second highest price ever paid for Rubens' work at auction,[3][7] after the Massacre of the Innocents, now in Toronto, which was sold at Sotheby's in London on 10 July 2002, for £49.5 million to Canadian businessman and art collector Kenneth Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet.

[3] A panel of academics employed by Christie's examined the portrait and ultimately concluded that the painting is a genuine Rubens.