Old Master portrait sells for £7m

The portrait was recently rediscovered after nearly half a century

Artist Frans Hals' painting, Portrait of Willem van Heythuysen, has exceeded its estimated price and sold for £7m at a Sotheby's auction in London.

The 1638 oil on oak panel had initially been expected to fetch between £3m to £5m at the Old Master Paintings sale.

JMW Turner's Pope on the Thames at Twickenham sold for £5.4m - the fourth highest price for a work by the artist ever achieved at auction.

Sotheby's Alex Bell said: "We are thrilled with this evening's results."

He added: "This evening's offerings were without doubt the most consistently high quality group of pictures we have brought together in any Old Master Paintings sale in all my 22 years at Sotheby's."

He said sales are now attracting "a more diverse and international spectrum of buyers" than ever before.

In total 19 artist records were established, including those for Jan Brueghel the Elder, Tintoretto, Aert van der Neer, Taddeo di Bartolo and Guido Reni.

Overall the auction made a total of £51.5m.