Friday 21 October 2016

"Emmanuel Noterman" is "Zacharie Noterman" instead

Jordaens, from Belgium, sells on 25 October 2016 an "Emmanuel Noterman", signed, a small panel (15 by 21 cm) estimated at 100 to 180 Euro.

It is actually a work by his younger brother Zacaharie (or Zacharias) Noterman instead. Emmanuel lived from 1808 to 1863, Zacharie from 1820 to 1890. Their works are fairly similar, but in general Zacharie is somewhat better and more sought after.


This is a sketch, perhaps means as preparation for a larger panel but obviously good enough to be signed. To me, it is very appealing, much more lively than the finished works, and show his great technical skill. These kind of works are not great art, they are typical commercial genre works where the older moralising message has been turned into amusement only; but one can still easily see why they were popular, and it would still be a great thing to hang on a wall somewhere (though not a large wall obviously).

I haven't found similar sketches by Zacharie in recent sales, but it should be worth 600 to 1,000 Euro. A painting which was about twice as big (and hence more detailed, more polished) sold for nearly $6,000 at Doyle in 2014.

UPDATE: now for sale at Horta (20 February 2017), as Zacharie Noterman, with an estimate of 350 to 500 Euro only.  Which is more than three times the Jordaens estimate, but still below what I thought it would be worth. No idea what it sold for at Jordaens!

No comments:

Post a Comment