Wednesday 6 July 2016

"Flemish School, 18th century": Adriaen de Greyff?

Dreweatts & Bloomsbury, from England, sell on 13 July 2016 a "Flemish School, 18th century" hunting still life, estimated at £2,000 to £3,000.

The frame bears a label for "Anton Grief 1670-1715. No such painter exists, but in older catalogues I can find the same name, and link it to Adriaen de Grijef  (1657-1722), a nice example of the progress of the purely factual aspects of art history.

A real, comparable (though somewhat larger) De Grijef was sold at Christie's in 2012 for £11,250. The quality of that work is somewhat better than the one for sale now, but they are clearly from the same school.

Other examples, as can be found at RKD (which helpfully assembles all different methods of writing his name in one list, which e.g. a Google search can't do), also are very similar in their individual elements.

As a work from the School or Workshop of De Grijef, the estimate on this one seems somewhat conservative. The rather strange way the dog on the left is cut off by the frame suggests that this painting may have been cut down at some time in the past though, which makes it somewhat less attractive.

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