Anonymous, Antwerp School is copy after Francken II

Michel Lhomme, from Liège in Belgium, sells on 12 December 2015 an "Anonymous, Antwerp School, 17th century" Preaching of John the Baptist, estimated at 1,500 to 2,000 Euro.

It is a copy after (or a relatively poor work from the very productive family workshop of) Frans Francken II. While there are many somewhat similar compositions by the Franckens, the only really close one I could find was sold at Dorotheum in 2008 (pictured from the RKD site).

It is interesting to see how both lack parts of the other work, one on the left, the other on the right. The different treatment of the light is also quite strange, the Dorotheum version is almost a drawing compared to the one for sale. As far as can be told from the rather poor picture, the one for sale seems to be a poorer work, lacking in details, much less convincing in the faces. Perhaps it looks better in the flesh or after cleaning, but many of these Franckens were equally mediocre, while occasionally a brilliant one shows what these painters were capable of when they went for quality instead of quantity. The estimate should be about right.