Thursday 27 August 2015

Circle of Palma Vecchio or much later?

Hargesheimer, Germany, sells on 19 September 2015 a "Venetian School, Master of the 17th/18th Century" Holy Family with the Baptist and Saint Lucy, 70 by 96 cm large and estimated at 500 Euro.

It is a very nice painting, and the only reason I can see that the estimate is so ridiculously low is that they are afraid that the work is a lot later than it looks to be.

Purely from the style, I would put it in the first half of the 16th century, somewhere close to Palma Vecchio (example pictured), and estimate it at the very least at 5,000 Euro, if not a whole lot more (if someone with a better eye for the styles of the many great Venetian painters of the period can pinpoint the painter).

Among the many holy families that are for sale, and the many Venetian-style paintings, this is one of the best I have seen apart from the really expensive ones in major auctions. Perhaps it is a copy after a painting I can't find (or which is lost), but even then it should be worth a few thousand euro's. Maybe the image hides the problems with the painting, which is according to the short description heavily repainted and still needs restoring. While I can see that it has lost some depth and colour brilliance, the problems don't seem that major.

If not Palma Vecchio, then rhe artist who seems to come closest to this work is Bonifazio Veronese (1487-1553), student of Palma Vecchio.



 The Joseph (the right side figure) in the above work from the Louvre by him has a nearly identical pose to the one on the work for sale, with the same compositorial device of putting his foot flat on the bottom of the picture. Although the same device has been used by Palma Vecchio in a Sacra Conversazione or the example given above, and probably by others.

His Holy Family from the Pinacoteca of the Vatican also has some remarkable similarities, in general and in details like the treatment of the faces or the sheep on the left.

UPDATE: sold for ... 150,000 Euro!!! 


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