Thursday, 4 June 2015

Is this painting good enough to be by Frans Floris?

Rouillac, French auction house, sells a portrait of a lady by Frans Floris, estimated at 10,000 to 15,000 Euro.

While the painting is clearly in the style of other Floris head studies, I don't see the necessary quality here to call it "by Floris", more "after" or "in the style of". The ear is awkward, the eyes are all wrong (especially her left eye, but also the fact that she seems to be looking in two directions at once), the head placed incorrectly on the body, the chin isn't parallel to the mouth, the clothing is too simplistic... The painting is damaged and dirty, but I don't believe that underneath it lurks a real Floris.

Compared with another similar head study (from the Hermitage), the differences become quite apparent. The composition is a lot more detailed, the anatomy much better, the shadows more consistent (in the one for sale, the light seems to hit her nose on one side but her neck on another side!).

Another one also shows the perfect grasp of shadows and anatomy, the detail in the eyes, ...

And that's comparing it with the most similar one I could find, not with one of the best, like this one from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

In 2012, you could buy the above painting by Floris, a similar subject with similar dimensions, for 7,400 Euro at Christie's. Why would anyone pay a lot more now for a clearly inferior one which probably isn't by Floris or (at best) needs an expensive restoration to bring it back up to standards? UPDATE: sold for 14,000 Euro, so my opinion was clearly not shared by everyone. I still think it is way too much, and much better comparable paintings can be bought for that kind of money.

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