Mystery man Georg Friedrich Stettner

Plückbaum, from Germany, sells on 4 June 2016 an "Attributed to Georg Friedrich Stettner (born Augsburg - died 1639 Frankfurt/Main)", a 91 by 146 cm oil on panel estimated at 6,500 Euro.

There are a few problems here. For starters, this painting is a copy after a work by Joos Goemare (1573-1611) of ca. 1600.

That work is also known from other copies (all with some variations but keeping all major aspects), so it seems to have been fairly popular in its day.

An engraving by Bolswert is also known for it (e.g. this copy from the Rijksmuseum). That engraving states "J. Goeimar inventor", so we have a contemporary source for the attribution.

As a copy, the estimate for the Stettner is probably too high in any case.

But the mystery Stettner lies elsewhere. Take for example Joos Goemare: a relatively unknown painter, with only one or a few attributed works. But he is known from old sources and listed in artist lexicons and the like (also as Goemaere and Goeimare), and of course we have the attribution in the engraving shown above.

For Stettner: nothing. His first appearance in any source (I can find online, that is) is in 1965, when a copy of this work (88 by 120cm, so presumably not the one for sale now) is sold at Sotheby's London for £240. Presumably that work was signed and dated 1635. I haven't found an image of it. In 1997 Van Ham, in Cologne, sells another(?) version, 91 by 122 cm and signed and dated again 1635, for 11,000 Euro (nearly three times the estimate!). And in 2012 the work for sale now at Pluckbaum was offered at Van Ham for 12,500 Euro but didn't sell. In 1999, a German article about an auction again describes a similar Stettner work, this time estimated at a hefty 70,000 Deutsche mark (about 30,000 Euro?)

Artnet shows a number of works sold as by or after Stettner over the years, including the two pictured above, probably the one from the Van Ham 1997 sale. But no other compositions by Stettner are known, and I can't find any old or contemporary reference to him. The "(born Augsburg - died 1639 Frankfurt/Main)" from the auction here seems to suggest that some auctioneer or researcher has found out more; but I have to wonder whether this Georg Friedrich Stettner really ever existed.

Or is there evidence after all? The above engraving is attributed to Georg Stettner in the lower left corner, and is accordingly given to Georg Friedrich Stettner by the Brown University Library. Case closed, except for one annoying detail: the engraving depicts a battle from 1760, which is visionary for a painter who died in 1639... This work was made in Nurnberg, but many painters moved during their career so that's not that much of a problem.

No idea whether this is a different Georg Stettner or whether the other one was not active in 1635 but 100 years later.

In any case, all this makes me wonder whether there really was a Georg Friedrich Stettner, active in 1635, or whether there has been a mixup with perhaps another Stettner or a misread (or forged?) signature. The painting for sale is in any case one of relatively many copies of the same Goeimare composition, and should struggle to fetch its estimate.