Thursday 21 June 2018

Flemish painting after Roman sculpture

SGL, from France, sells on 24 June 2018 a "Flemish School, ca. 1600" Hercules and the snakes, estimated at 3,000 to 5,000 Euro.

The same figure can be seen on a "Follower of Rubens" work sold at Christie's in 2015 for £11,800, but the two works are different enough to suppose that some engraving was the basis for it.

On the Rijksmuseum site I found this anonymous engraving, from a 1584 Italian book on ancient Roman sculptures.

And the RKD showed me the actual sculpture, currently in the Uffizi.

Whether the artist of the work for sale knew the engraving (or another one of the same work), or had seen the original sculpture, is hard to know of course.

UPDATE: again for sale at SGL on 11 November 2018, with a seriously revised estimate of 1,200 to 1,500 Euro. Should have no trouble finding a buyer at that price.

UPDATE: a better version was sold at Artcurial in November 2018 for 23,000 Euro!


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