$800 painting proves to be Old Master

Fiona Bruce of Antiques Roadshow.

A painting that hung on the wall of a priest's home for more than a decade after he bought it for £400 ($808) at an antique shop has been identified as a van Dyck portrait worth a thousand times as much.

The work, previously dismissed as a copy, was valued at £400,000 after its owner brought it into the Antiques Roadshow and is the most valuable panting to be identified in the 36-year history of the programme.

Canon Jamie MacLeod, who took the painting along to a roadshow in Newstead Abbey, near Nottingham, now plans to sell it to buy new church bells.

He bought the portrait from a Cheshire antique shop - which has since closed - 12 years ago.

The work was identified after the show's host, Fiona Bruce, who was making a show about the artist with expert Philip Mould, saw the painting and wondered if it was genuine.

Mould agreed to take a look at it and after weeks of painstaking cleaning and the removal of a top coat of 18th century paint, the work was verified by Dr Christopher Brown, one of the world's leading authorities on Anthony van Dyck.

MacLeod, who helps to run a retreat house in the Peak District, said: "It's been an emotional experience and it's such great news. It's wonderful that new church bells hopefully will be pealing out to commemorate the centenary of the [end of the] First World War in 2018."

Bruce said: "It's everyone's dream to spot a hidden masterpiece, I'm thrilled that my hunch paid off. To discover a genuine van Dyck is incredibly exciting. I'm so pleased for [MacLeod]."

The Flemish artist became the leading court painter in England under Charles I and his works hang in Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and in museums and galleries around the world.

A self-portrait recently sold for £12.5 million, prompting a fundraising campaign to try to save the painting for the nation.

The work discovered on the show is a portrait of a Brussels magistrate. It is believed to have been painted as part of the artist's preparation for a 1634 work showing seven magistrates, which was eventually destroyed in a French attack on the city in 1695.