We weren't the only ones to spot this good Francken...

La Suite, from Spain, sold on 27 September 2018 a "16th century Flemish school" Moses striking the rock, a nice-sized (51 by 39) oil on copper estimated at 2,000 to 2,500 Euro.

It was a very good version, in reasonably good condition as well (could do with a cleaning), of a work by Francken (either Frans Francken II or Hieronymus Francken III), and as such worth a lot more than the low estimate (and dating to the first half of the 17th century instead of to the 16th century).

The RKD showed a worse version, attributed to the Circle of Frans Francken II, from the Museum of Quimper. The landsdcape aspect turned it into a much less impressive composition

A much more comparable version is in the Liechtenstein Museums (part of the Hohenbuchau collection, a very nice private collection containing works by Rubens, Mandyn, Jan Brueghel, ...). The main difference is on the left side, where the addition of a woman getting water out of the brand-new stream explains the look of the other two (here three) women to the left: in the version for sale, they seem to stare at nothing instead of caring for the swooned maiden on the right. The Liechtenstein version also has an additional group of three persons in the middle.

But the quality of painting is very close, with the version for sale perhaps a tad less brilliant. This is far removed from the many, many Franckens from the school of, circle of, followers of, and so on which appear in every old master sale for, depending on the quality, 2,000 to 10,000 Euro. This is a work of 20,000 Euro or more, the best undiscovered Francken I noticed since the one at Horta in 2016.

Great find, but not too hard: the auction house had 10 (ten!) telephone bidders for this one...

UPDATE: sold for 18,000 Euro, close to what I thought it would be worth!