Friday 10 April 2015

Jordaens?


At Fleck, an auction house in Marseille, they sell on 12 April 2015 a "Cloelia crossing the Tiber" attributed to Jordaens, without estimation. The attribution is done by "Cabinet Turquin", who do a lot of attributions of Old Masters on smaller French auctions, but in this case I have no idea where they got this from. It may be an "after" or "follower of" Jordaens, but this one, unless there is something quite different hidden beneath the visible paint, should never be called "attributed to Jordaens". The painting looks decidedly 18th century.

Whether tje subject is correctly identified is also not clear, there doesn't seem to be much to base (or discredit) the given subject on. The same painting, with same attribution and subject, was for sale in Marseille in 2007 as well, but I haven't been able to find the result of that auction.

The composition may be by Jordaens, as he liked to cram his pictures full with bodies: but the way it is painted, the flesh, the faces, the clothing, the horse, are all vastly inferior to his work.

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