"Circle of Michaelina Wauthier" is copy after Van Dyck

Vanderkindere, from Belgium, sells on 27 March 2018 a "Circle of Michaelina Wauthier" Mystic marriage, estimated at 300 to 400 Euro.

I see very little influence of Wauthier in this mediocre work though. She has painted at least one Mystic Marriage (now kept in the Seminary of Namur), and she is the well-deserved candy of the month in Flemish Baroque painting as she has been undervalued for way too long, even though she is a very good painter and should be one of the standard names behind the big three (Rubens, Van Dyck and Jordaens), up there with people like Rombouts, De Crayer, Van Thulden, or Quellin.

But that doesn't mean that some unrelated work should be tagged on her "entourage" when there is no indication of any influence; the work for sale is a poor copy after Van Dyck (from the Royal Collection), nothing more, nothing less.

UPDATE: sold for 350 Euro.

Painting I highlighted now at TEFAF!

Weiss Gallery, an important Old Masters Dealer, is present at the major TEFAF art fair in Maastricht. And what do I spot when they Tweet about it but a painting I highlighted nearly exactly a year ago as being a good bargain, and which ended up being one of the biggest sleepers I had posted about ever?

It's nice to see what happens to paintings you care about after the initial auction has passed. This one ideally should go to a major Belgian museum, but they most likely lack the necessary funds for it.

Women's Day 2016: Michaelina Wautier

Koller sells on 22 March 2016 a "Michaelina Wautier" signed and 1654 dated portrait of Martino Martini, Jesuit missionary in China, estimated at 5,800 to 8,300 Euro.

Nothing wrong with the attribution, I just wanted to highlight a rare painting by one of the few well-known Flemish woman painters of the 17th century. Combined with the Chinese interest, it should easily fetch the estimate and then some. Wautiers (or Wouthiers) very rarely come up for sale, and the most recent one I could find (also at Koller, in 2003) fetched 30,000 Euro. In my opinion the work for sale now is at least as good as that one.

According to Wikipedia, Martino Martini was in Norway in 1653 and in Rome early in 1655, and travelled through Europe, including Amsterdam and Antwerp, inbetween. This would match the date of the portrait exactly.

UPDATE: sold for CHF 480,500! Or some 440,000 Euro. Impressive. I knew the estimate was way too low, but I didn't expect it to soar this high...