"Flemish, ca. 1600" is a nice Francken with variations

Plückbaum, from Germany, sells on 4 June 2016 a "Flemish School, ca. 1600" Mocking of Christ (lot 985), estimated at 680 Euro.

It is a variation of a work by the Francken family I already discussed last year, and a good one at that. It is also, for this type of work, relatively large (92 by 74cm), compared to the usual 65 by 50 cm of similar works.

The Christ figure can be found nearly identical on multiple other works (one example from Zeller 2007, one from Sotheby's with a different head position, other examples shown in the previous blog linked above). The "clothing", the way the cloth is draped, seems slightly more modern or sophisticated in this example though, perhaps pointing in the direction of Hieronymus Francken II or III?

The main difference with all other versions I could find images of (and there are quite a few of those, e.g. at RKD and Balat) is in the figures facing Christ. The kneeling, jeering man with the red pants has some similarities with other figures in contemporary Mocking of Christ works, but no direct counterpart, which is unusual in these Francken works.

The closest seems to be this copy after Francken work from the Abbey of Tongerlo (picture courtesy of Balat).

This Francken (from the TaxandriaMuseum in Turnhout) also shows a similar composition, but seen from a completely different place. (picture again from Balat).

This makes it clear that such a kneeling figure mocking Christ is not uncommon in the work of the Franckens (and their followers), even though we have no immediate example for the current composition.

Overall, this is one of the better versions of this very popular Francken studio work, with some "unique" (or at least uncommon) elements, and should be worth 3,000 to 5,000 Euro easily instead of the estimated 680.