Vrancx, Francken or Pynas

Sheppard's, from Ireland, sells on 30 June 2015 a "Seventeenth century Dutch School" Saint John the Baptist preaching, estimated at 1,500 to 2,500 Euro.

It was sold at the same auction house in October 2014 for 3,500 Euro, then "attributed to Jan Pynas", a Dutch painter from 1581-1631. I don't really see many similarities with Pynas' work, like the above work from the Museum of Quimper with the same subject (courtesy RKD), although it is obviously from the same region and time.

The composition of the work for sale has been used multiple times by other artists though. Wikigallery shows a version supposedly by Frans Francken the Younger. It has some changes, e.g. the two horsemen on the right in the original are reversed and placed in the centre in Francken's version, and John the Baptist has a different attitude.

Similar to the Francken version is an anonymous one from the Warsaw Museum (again courtesy RKD).

But the RKD also lists a third version, from the Royal Danish Collection from ca. 1620, situated close to Sebastian Vrancx.

So, where to place the one for sale? No idea, although the other versions suggest that this one is probably Flemish as well, and not Dutch. Despite the small differences noted above, it is very obvious that all these paintings (except the Pynas) go back to one and the same origin. The shared details are too numerous to be a coincidence (e.g. the man in the middle carrying on his back a rectangular wicker basket with a cloth on top of it, just to the right of the seated man in the foreground who leans on his left arm). The one for sale is adequately painted, with some aspects like the white horse noticeably better than other details. It needs a good cleaning, but it should be worth the upper estimate even as an anonymous painting, and warrants further research to see whether e.g. any of the Franckens have had a hand in it.