Delightful trompe-l'oeil in Dutch tradition at Gregory's (but not described as such!)

Gregory's, despite the name from Italy, sells on 5 February 2016 a "Late 17th or early 18th century" still life with parrot and flowers, estimated at 700 to 1,000 Euro.

What they seem to have missed and what makes it in my view the most desirable is the trompe-l'oeil aspect of the work.

This type of trompe-l'oeil, with the "oh no, the canvas is loose from the frame!" effect, was most popular in the Netherlands in the late 17th century, with painters like Samuel van Hoogstraten (top image, attributed to him) and especially Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts (bottom two images).

The work for sale is not good enough to be by either of those, but it is amusing, well-painted, and original enough to be interesting to many collectors and art lovers. It should be worth double the estimate or more. I wonder if a different kind of frame (or no frame at all) wouldn't enforce the effect. I don't know enough about frames to judge whether the current one could be the original, my guess would be "no".

Dirck van Delen "Massacre of the Innocents"

Gregory's, from Bologna in Italy, sells on 25 September 2015 a "Flemish painter of the 17th century" Massacre of the Innocents, 81 by 108 cm and estimated at 3,000 to 6,000 Euro.

It is a very interesting picture, and to me it is very much in the style of, or even a real Dirck Van Delen (although perhaps a tad too loosely painted for him), but with the figures painted by another (so far anonymous) Flemish painter, which was rather usual for Flemish paintings of the period. The composition is rather unusual, with the architecture not simply as the decor or background, but actually right in the front, as if we are in the action instead of looking at it from afar. It gives the impression of being painted for a very specific location, where it would be perfectly integrated in the room.

While none of his paintings have such a brutal foreground as the one here, he has used similar devices in multiple paintings, like the church interior pictured (from the RKD), which has very similar pillars.

Also this very recent one from Lempertz, sold for nearly 100,000 Euro, has some striking similarities to the one for sale, although the architecture here is painted more precise.

Real Dirck van Delen paintings fetch a lot of money, often surpassing 100,000 Euro. While this one, if it is a real van Delen, doesn't rank among his best ones qua detailing, it still is a very appealing and interesting painting and should easily fetch 10,000 Euro even without a certain Van Delen attribution.

UPDATE: sold for 3,500 Euro, right on the original estimate and way below my estimate. Either someone got a bargain or I was too optimistic.