Monday 28 March 2016

Interesting "Creation of the Animals": other version found

Hampel, from Germany, sells on 7 April 2016 a "Flemish School, early 16th century" Creation of the Animals, estimated at 8,000 to 12,000 Euro.

Apart from a location somewhere between Herri met de Bles and the Antwerp Mannerists, nothing more is said about the work.

A copy of it, sadly also anonymous, can be found in either the Musée Calvet or the Fondation Calvet, from Avignon. The Museum website is not accessible at the time of writing, and the Fondation website has a search functionality which never goes beyond 99%, which is kinda annoying.


The Calvet version (for which I don't have a good full picture, apologies! The partial image below gives a better idea of the quality) looks to be the better one, although some aspects are better in the Hampel version (e.g. the falling angels from the clouds on the upper left side).

Comparing some details show the quality of both works, and give to me the impression that they were made by the same artist, and not that one is a copy of the other.

So here we have a work that is truly of museum quality, with a very interesting (and saleable) image, but sadly without an artist or fixed date. Still, it should easily fetch the estimate.

UPDATE: sold for 8,000 Euro, exactly the estimate.

UPDATE 2: 2 other versions and a possible artist are discussed in a later blog post

UPDATE 3: Lempertz sells on 20 September 2017 (what I assume to be) the same work sold at Hampel in 2016, now with an estimate of 14,000 to 16,000 Euro and an attribution to Hans Bocksberger, a name I hadn't seen in association with this work yet. While I can't rule it out, I see no reason why this attribution has been chosen apart from the fact that Bocksberger has drawn animals (as did many others).


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