Pandolfini part 2: Flemish Entombment

Pandolfini, from Italy, sells on 26 February 2019 a "Flemish School, 16th century" Entombment, estimated at 2,000 to 3,000 Euro.

The work seems, if one goes back far enough, to be based on a prototype by Dirk Bouts from ca. 1450, now in the National Gallery. The faded colouring is because this is a very rare surviving early painting on canvas instead of on panel.

But a closer parallel is with a work by the Master of Hoogstraten, now in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Antwerp. This anonymous Master was active around 1500, and is named after an altarpiece from Hoogstraten, a regional center in the province of Antwerp with a beautiful grand church. This work is a piece of that altarpiece of the Seven Sorrows of Mary.

It seems as if the work for sale is still later and further removed from the Bouts original; the Hoogstraten version keeps the Bouts'  right side (the Magdalene and the man), while the Lamentation in the background also reminds me of the Lamentation by Bouts from the National Gallery of Prague. But the position of the Christ, and his hands, are different from the Bouts and closer to the work for sale, as is the man on the left and the posture of the Virgin.

But the work for sale is not by or after the Master of Hoogstraten, sadly, it is a copy after an engraving by Antonie Wierix of a design by Marten de Vos from ca. 1585, as found at the Rijksmuseum. It is a fairly faithful copy, but excludes the extra elements of the Passion in the front, and the (somewhat greyed out) figure above and to the right of Mary, and the church in the background.

The best part of the work for sale, apart from the composition which isn't original, is the very fine colouring, which gives the whole a very pleasing appearance. But the execution lacks some finesse, the faces are a bit rough. All in all, the painting (which may well be early 17th century instead of 16th) is probably worth the estimate, but don't expect to buy something truly original.

UPDATE: sold for 2,750 Euro.