Rubens' painting expected to set record price for work by the artist

Rubens' The Massacre of the Innocents, which for three centuries was thought to have been the work of one of his minor followers, is expected to set a record price for a painting by the artist when it is auctioned at Sotheby's next week.

The painting, dated about 1610, recorded the moment when King Herod ordered all newborn boys to be slain to prevent one becoming a Messiah, but it was assumed to have been painted by Jan van den Hoecke. It narrowly avoided destruction during the Second World War when it was removed from an office in Vienna two days before the building was destroyed by bombs.

When the Austrian owner of the painting had it valued, Old Master specialist George Gordon became suspicious of its accepted history. "It struck me as a work of considerably higher quality than that of van den Hoecke and, after a lot of research and technical processes, so it proved to be," he said.

Mr Gordon said the work could sell for up to £10m on Wednesday, beating the record for a Rubens, at £4.6m for Portrait of a Man as the God Mars.

At the same sale, Rembrandt's 1633 Portrait of a Young Woman, not seen in public for 50 years, should fetch up to £15m.