"Follower of Frans Wouters" is copy after Rubens

Audap-Mirabaud from France sells on 1 April 2016 a "Flemish School, 17th century, follower of Frans Wouters" Atalante and Meleager, estimated at 3,000 to 4,000 Euro.

It is a rather weak painting with a good composition, but I couldn't find no trace of an original by Frans Wouters. It turns out to be a copy after a lost painting by Rubens, which is known from other copies (one in the Museum of Ghent, the above Studio copy from Sotheby's in 2007, sold for £216,000).

The one for sale here is not really good, the figures lack all grace and strength, and will probably struggle to make the estimate.

It still is a better work than the above "Flemish School, ca. 1650" Daniel in the Lion's Den though: it is a quite close copy of the work by Rubens from the National Gallery, but instead of a despairing Daniel you a resigned, almost laconic one.