Dirck van Delen "Massacre of the Innocents"

Gregory's, from Bologna in Italy, sells on 25 September 2015 a "Flemish painter of the 17th century" Massacre of the Innocents, 81 by 108 cm and estimated at 3,000 to 6,000 Euro.

It is a very interesting picture, and to me it is very much in the style of, or even a real Dirck Van Delen (although perhaps a tad too loosely painted for him), but with the figures painted by another (so far anonymous) Flemish painter, which was rather usual for Flemish paintings of the period. The composition is rather unusual, with the architecture not simply as the decor or background, but actually right in the front, as if we are in the action instead of looking at it from afar. It gives the impression of being painted for a very specific location, where it would be perfectly integrated in the room.

While none of his paintings have such a brutal foreground as the one here, he has used similar devices in multiple paintings, like the church interior pictured (from the RKD), which has very similar pillars.

Also this very recent one from Lempertz, sold for nearly 100,000 Euro, has some striking similarities to the one for sale, although the architecture here is painted more precise.

Real Dirck van Delen paintings fetch a lot of money, often surpassing 100,000 Euro. While this one, if it is a real van Delen, doesn't rank among his best ones qua detailing, it still is a very appealing and interesting painting and should easily fetch 10,000 Euro even without a certain Van Delen attribution.

UPDATE: sold for 3,500 Euro, right on the original estimate and way below my estimate. Either someone got a bargain or I was too optimistic.