A Memling-inspired Saint Anne

Cornette de Saint-Cyr, from France, sells on 30 January 2020 a "ca. 1520 Flemish School" Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, estimated at 6,000 to 8,000 Euro.

Another version of the painting is at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, as "Anonymous, Flemish, ca. 1500", so while it confirms the date and region, it doesn't help us any further in finding the artist or inspiration for it.

And a minor variation is shown in a work from the Walker Art Gallery (through Art UK) Attributed simply to the Netherlandish School.

A miniature from the Simon Bening Workshop, from ca. 1510, shows the same structure, with many comparable elements in the dress and positions. It is for sale at Jörn Günther Rare Books. It seems unlikely that there would be no link between this miniature and the Walker art version above, as the folds in the dress of the Virgin are just too similar.

Older Italian versions simply showed Anne hovering over (sometimes really towering!) and protecting Mary. This can also be seen in e.g. this painting by Jan Joest of Kalkar, from the Columbus Museum of Arts, which dates to ca. 1510 and is thus contemporary to the work for sale.

This vertical depiction of the Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, with Anne reading a book, seems to have originated with Hans Memling in ca. 1480, from a diptych in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich.

UPDATE: sold for 7,800 Euro.

"Attributed to Frans Snyders": workshop of Peter van Boucle

Vanderkindere, from Belgium, sells on 22 January 2020 an "attributed to Frans Snyders" still life, estimated at 2,000 to 3,000 Euro.

This good sized work (96 by 128 cm) is painted by Peter van Boucle (born ca. 1600, died 1673), a pupil of Snyders. He worked mainly in Paris and was known almost exclusively for still lifes, often with animals in them. Some tell-tale characteristics reveal his hand.

The RKD lists a very similar work with a Genuese art dealer in 1968. The boar's head, the hare with the sniffing dog, ...

Another one was sold at Drouot in 1971.

This one is from a private collection. The way the white cloth is folded is remarkably similar.

Originally sold as by Frans Snyders (in 1972 with art dealer Jungeling), now reattributed to Van Boucle. The position and order of duck / hare / partridge(?) is comparable.

Still via RKD, offered at Sotheby's in 1990, again with a boar's head in the background. And a whole series of others with similar dogs, hares, birds, ...

Ivoire, an auction house from Toulouse, in France, offered a signed van Boucle of a similar size with again some elements very close to the one here. Their estimate was 6,000 to 8,000 Euro. The quality of the image is quite low, but one can see that the hare here is very close to the one on the work for sale, both the position and details like the ears. It also contains a sniffing hunting dog with a narrow collar around its neck, a dead duck, and a similar live chicken.

While the work offered at Vanderkindere doesn't match the quality of van Boucle's best works, it still has some elements showing real quality (like the above detail of the dog and hare), and is worthy of a "Workshop of" label. The estimate is probably about right, it may fetch 5,000 Euro on a good day.

UPDATE: sold for 2,200 Euro.

"Otto van Veen" is Hendrick van Balen II

Vanderkindere, from Belgium, sells on 21 January 2019 an "Attributed to Otto van Veen" Young Bacchus, estimated at 2,500 to 3,500 Euro. 


It is probably a work by or after Hendrick Van Balen the Younger (1623-1661), as it is identical to multiple works sold as such and also matches his style in general, more than the more formal style of Van Veen.

One smaller, darker version was sold at Piasa for 1,030 Euro.

And another, from the Circle of van Balen, was sold this year at Cornette de Saint Cyr for 1,300 Euro.

A somewhat better version is for sale with antiques shop La Credence, for an unknown price. They give no attribution, only a generic "17th century Flemish".

The one for sale now is clearly superior to these three, and the estimate seems about right.

UPDATE: not sold

18th c. Flemish is copy after Hendrik Goltzius

Chorley's, from England, sells on 28 January 2020 an "18th century Flemish School" Salvator Mundi,  estimated at £300 to £500.

It is a good copy after an engraving by Hendrick Goltzius from 1589 (found at the Rijksmuseum). There seems to be no reason to date this to the 18th century and not to the 17th century, when this would have been more popular.

It should be worth £700 to £1000 probably.

UPDATE: indeed, sold for £800.

An unknown Antonius Claeissens?

Chorley's, from England, sells on 28 January 2020 a "17th century Flemish" Virgin and Child, estimated at £700 to £1,000.

The remarkable physique of the Virgin, with the very broad shoulders, makes me believe that we should look in the direction of the Claeissens brothers from Bruges.

Probably the closest is a work by Antonius Claeissens (active 1551-1613), which has a very similar Virgin, with a comparable background as well (found through RKD). The row of tassels at the top is comparable, but most striking is the nearly identical dress of the Virgin, with the same border decoration.

The chances of having the same bodytype for the rather solemn virgin, with the same dress and decoration, same type of flower, same type of background, but a different artist or workshop, seems rather slim.

Antoon Claeissens is sadly the least interesting of the four Claeissens (compared to his brother Pieter the Younger and certainly his other brother Gilles or his father Pieter the Elder). Even so, this is a relatively rare work from the very last spasms of the great School of Bruges which started with Van Eyck, Memling and Christus, and which was already overtaken by the more modern art of the Pourbus family.

This work should be worth 2,000 to 3,000 Euro.

UPDATE: sold for 7,500, impressive!

Copy after a lost Rubens?

Chorley's, from England, sells on 28 January 2020 a "Flemish School, 17th/18th century" Achilles discovered among the daughters of Lycomedes, a very large canvas (150 by 228!) estimated at £2,000 to £3,000.

It is not painted terribly well (it looks more like a 19th century copy, though a good enough one to be worth buying), but the composition is pure Flemish Baroque quality, so that's where I started looking.

Sure enough, the Prado has a Rubens / Van Dyck collaboration with the same topic and many similar parts (e.g. the two daughters at the front), but it isn't the same in the end.

Looking further lead me to the Danish Statens Museum for Kunst, which has a Rubens drawing showing the composition of the work for sale. Well, the horizontal version that is, where all figures are placed together much closer, giving a more intense painting, and avoiding the empty vertical space right in the middle.

The RKD lists a copy after this work, offered by Hampel auctions in Germany in 2015 (I can't immediately find it there). This version was known as early as 1854 as by Van Dyck, and later as by Rubens, but is now considered a (very good) copy.

The Prado version is known through several copies (from Nicholas Ryckmans and Cornelis Visscher II), but the other version, which interests us here, also has been turned into an engraving, by Frans van den Wijngaerde: this engraving explicitly states that it is a work after Van Dyck. As it is made in the decades directly after Rubens and Van Dyck died, chances are that this attribution is correct. This version was found at the Rijksmuseum. The British Museum states that despite the engraving being made between 1630 and 1645, they are still wrong with the Van Dyck attribution and it is a Rubens anyway.

The version for sale is the only one I can find with the horizontal format. Whether this is an invention by the copiist, or some lost or online not available version exists with this less successful format is unclear to me. It is in any case an interesting work if you are interested in Rubens or Van Dyck.

UPDATE: sold for £4,500, double the estimate.