A religious scene painted by a disciple of one of Italy's greatest artists has sold for almost £65,000 at a Westcountry auction.
The Holy Family, by Spanish/Flemish artist Pablo Esquarte, smashed its estimated sale price by more than £20,000 and was snapped up by a "famous picture dealer".
Auctioneers S J Hales, of Bovey Tracey, near Newton Abbot, sold the oil painting for a family living in Manaton, on Dartmoor. The work had been owned since 1880, when it was bought from Hands Vaughan Jenkinson, in Greenwich.
Sara Hales, who tracked down the identity of the picture, said: "I did four months' research on this so I am absolutely delighted at the price.
"Nobody knew it was by the artist until I began searching – his work does not come up for sale very often."
Esquarte was a 16th-century artist of Flemish origin – he is known under a variety of names, including Paul Eschepers – but studied at Valencia before moving to Venice, where he became a pupil of Titian.
He studied under the Italian master, whose use of colours influenced generations of painters, then won renown for his own portrait work.
Unlike so many artists of his day, he amassed a fortune through his work and was employed by the Duke De Villahermosa to paint a genealogy of the Duke's family as well as ornamenting all his palaces and country residences.
Another example of Esquarte's work, Ecco Homo, can be seen at the Museum of Fine Arts in Bilbao.
The painting sold for a hammer price of £52,000 plus a buyer's premium and VAT – a total of £64,480.
