This Anthony Van Dyke painting was purchased for 25,000 USD when the market was shying away from dark ancestral portraits. Knowing the market for old masters was depressed at that time, Tod advised the painting to be held for three years and for an additional 100,000 USD be invested for research, appraisals and authentication. An English auction house then offered to purchase the painting for 600,000 USD, claiming the picture didn’t have much value and would only sell to a buyer who appreciated stately pictures of this genre. After passing on that offer, just weeks later Tod sold the painting to an art venture investment group for 2,000,000 USD. Since that sale, the painting has been purchased and resold several times, each time bringing two to three times its purchase price.