Showing posts with label Lindsay Burns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lindsay Burns. Show all posts

Thursday, 14 April 2016

When the "Italian" painting you put on the cover of your catalogue is a copy after Murillo...

Lindsay Burns, from the UK, sells on 19 April 2016 an "Italian School, 17th/18th century" Madonna and Child, a large (152 by 102) work estimated at £500 to £800. They even used it as the cover of their catalogue.

It is a beautiful work, but it is a copy of a famous work by Murillo of nearly the same dimensions, now in the Palazzo Pitti. The copy is very good (you can see a much larger picture by right-clicking the image), only the eyes of the child are a bit off-putting. The work is in such a good condition that I wonder whether it is well preserved, well restored, or, well, brand new. I see no reason to believe it is Italian though.

If it is old, then it should be worth more than the come-and-get-me estimate, a few thousand pounds probably; but I don't get why an auction house would use this work as the cover of their catalogue and fail to recognise it for what it is...