Cabral Moncado Leiloes, from Portugal, sells on 30 May 2016 (i.e. now!) a "Flemish School, 15th - 16th century" Praying Virgin, estimated at 3,000 to 4,500 Euro.
It is a very nice version of a painting by Quentin Massys, known from multiple versions from his time, e.g. the above one (attributed to his Workshop) from the
National Gallery. The original was part of a diptych with Christ on the left wing, but the right wing alone has often been copied. The link to Massys is given on the frame of the work, but for some reason omitted by the auction house. The work for sale is a bit less subtle in the flesh tones and the execution of the hands, and is either another Workshop copy or the work of a very good Follower. The slightly lower quality may also in part be caused by the smaller size (32 by 22 cm vs. 60 by 35 cm) of course.
An original, clearly superior version was sold at
Sotheby's in 2013 and fetched $1 million... The one for sale is closer to the National Gallery version though.
The painting now for sale is probably the same as this one from the
RKD (shown together here for easy comparison), which was for sale in Germany in 1919, and which Friedländer notes as "Real?", but which the RKD lists as "After Massys". The one big advantage of knowing if this is the same, is that in that case you can be certain that it isn't a recent fake, but at least a 100-year old one.
If the painting is a genuine 15th-16th c. work, then it should be worth considerably more than the estimate, at least 10,000 Euro, as Early Netherlandish paintings of this quality and so closely related to Quentin Massys are rare.
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