Deciphering labels to identify sitters

Murray's, from the Isle of Man, sell on 2 July 2016 a "19th c. English" portrait of a woman, estimated at £350 to £500.

It has a number of papers stuck to the back, one barely readable letter and one paper identifying the sitter. The auctioneer has deciphered this paper as follows:

"Selina Dowager of Governor Passon of St. Helena and widow of General Lumsdaine, then wife of William Walker Rowley (b 1790, d 1873)"

The actual text, with some further research, seems to be:

"Selina, daughter (!) of Governor Patton (!) of St. Helena and widow of general Lumsdaine, then wife of William Walker Rowley (b 1790 (c), d. 1873).

Selina was the 9th daughter and 13th child (out of 10 daughters and 17 children) of Robert Patton (1743-1812), Governor of Saint Helena between 1800 and 1807. She was born 24 September 1793 in Scotland, and died in 1872 or 1873. In 1813 she married James Lunsdaine in India, but he died in 1816. William Walker Rowley was a clergyman, younger than Selina Patton (one site gives 1813 as his year of birth, but that seems too young), who survived her.

And there the trail ends. She apparently had no children, and no claims to fame. But she left behind a nice enough portrait,  though the auction site photos seem to distort it significantly. Probably not worth more than the estimate, but better than many of those anonymous portraits at least.

A ca. 1540 portrait of known sitter for 330 Euro? Bargain!

Kunstauktionshaus Leipzig, in Germany, sells on 2 July 2016 as lot 1016 a "German painter, 16th century" portrait of Christoph Gugel (1466-1546), estimated at 330 Euro.

The sitter has also been portrayed in an engraving, and it is clearly the same person, but the engraving doesn't seem to be based on this painting. He was a Chancellor and council to three Holy Roman Emperors, so quite an important person in his day.

While I don't think the portrait can be attributed to any of the great names of the period, it still is a well-painted portrait considering the probable age of it (ca. 1540), and in good condition. To get something like this for 330 Euro would be an absolute bargain.

Flemish portrait, ca. 1600

At Quai des enchères in Macon, France, they sell a Flemish School (?), 17th century portrait of a man, estimated at only 500 to 600 Euro.

It is a very high quality portrait, not reaching Rubens or Van Dyck heights of course, but much better than the majority of portraits of that age. The collar and clothing are loosely painted and may have influenced the estimate negatively, but the head is very accurately and convincingly rendered, with beautiful attention to detail.

The style of clothing can be found in many portraits ranging from about 1575 to 1625, but the manner of painting in the face seems more modern than that used by late 16th century painters like Adriaen Key. It's not certain to be Flemish, it could be Dutch, but the guess of the auctioneer to locate it in Flanders seems the most likely. I was first going to try to attribute it, but when I look at the RKD, I notice that many good portraits there are anonymous as well, so it seems to be pretty hard to do this right. So no name, but it should be worth at least a 1,000 Euro even without sitter or painter known.

Woman with chicken

At Côte d'Opale, an auction house in Boulogne-sur-Mer, they sell on 18 April a "Dutch School, 17th century" portrait of a woman with a chicken, estimated at 1,500 to 2,000 Euro.

I can't find fault with that description, and the estimate seems low, for a painting which needs some TLC but could turn out to be quite special. The painting is done in the loose, nearly expressionistic style favoured by only a few of their portraitists, most famously Frans Hals but also e.g. Rembrandt and Carel Fabritius (his "head of a boy" pictured, from wikigallery.org). While I don't think it is by any of those, it still is a very well painted portrait, where the individuality of the woman and the characteristics of her face are captured with only a few well-placed brushstrokes, and the hands show the roughness of a farmer, not the finesse of the nobility usually portrayed. Could it be by Abraham van Diepenbeeck? His "Portrait of an old Jew" in the Antwerp Museum seems similar.

The painting is damaged and very dirty, so it's a gamble what can be made of it eventually. But it is the kind of gamble that could pay off quite nicely, and it is a much better painting than the usual copies, derivations, and third-rate painters one finds for these prices (at auction and on this blog, in all fairness).

Strange head jewellery

Some pictures are not very interesting from an aesthetic or art historial point of view, but have other interest nevertheless. This family portrait, for sale at Bukowski's with an estimate of 1,200 Euro and a current highest bid of 500 Euro, described as Baroque (style), 18th or 19th century, is fairly mediocre. UPDATE: it was not sold and has been relisted.

But what is the strange thing on or around the head of the woman? Some Star Trek inspired communication device? A medical thing? Jewellery, some strange parure? Her necklace is rather peculiar as well, with some collar on top of it apparently, but the head decoration is the most curious thing I have seen in a portrait in a while. I presume it is something they considered to be decoration, why else would you show it in your portrait (in those ages, nowadays you can find anything in portraits)?

The most likely explanation seems to be that it is some kind of "oorijzer" (ear iron), an element of Dutch traditional dress, normally meant to keep the headdress on the head and in shape (example of an oorijzer covering the ears in a 1636 portrait by Jacob Cuyp). On this portrait, the couple is shown in prayer, and this means that the headdress needs to be removed. Possibly the oorijzer was exempt from this, and only the actual headdress was removed, resulting in this unusual picture. I certainly can't find any other example of this anywhere, making this painting probably fairly interesting for institutions or people specializing in costume history and the like.

A somewhat similar element on the forehead can be seen in Rembrandt's portrait of Margaretha de Geer, in the National Gallery in London (detail pictured). But none of these portraits looks so strange as the one for sale here.

Early Netherlandish portrait at Koller

Koller Auctions is selling a very interesting Early Netherlandish portrait. Estimated at only 3,800 to 5,700 Euro, it is described as "Portrait of a young man" and "School of Burgundy, probably 16th century(?)". I don't know whether they added the question mark because they aren't certain that it isn't a 19th century pastiche, or whether they believe it may even be 15th century.

The first thing that strikes me in the painting is the hat. It is the same hat used in the portrait of Philip the Good by Rogier Van der Weyden, ca. 1450.

Second, the tiny strip of background, just above the shoulders, so typical of Memling. But the overall quality of the portrait, and the anatomy, isn't good enough to be a Memling work (and too modern to be a Van der Weyden, of course).

So, is it some painter we can name? Not really. The identity of the sitter is equally mysterious. But if it is a ca. 1500 painting, with this quality, it should be worth a lot more than the estimate, and should easily fetch 20,000 Euro or more. I'm just a bot worried by the seemingly too obvious hat that is being used, it shouts too loudly "I'm old and Burgundian" perhaps.

UPDATE: apparently it wasn't sold, as it is again for sale on 22 March 2016 at Koller as  "Italy, ca. 1500, after a Flemish model", with an 8,000 to 12,500 Euro estimate (which is higher than the previous one!).

UPDATE: sold for 22,500 Euro, way above estimate! 

Woman portrait, style of Van Dyck

UPDATE: Belatedly I found out that the original for this painting is a work in the Dresden Gemaldegalerie, painted by Rubens. The poor images I found show a distinctly less pretty painting than the one sold here though. A better (though sweeter) version was sold at Sotheby's in 2011 for £27,500. End of update...

Now for  sale at Historia, starting at 400 Euro, is a "Flemish portrait of the 17th century", 65 by 49 cm. It is a good quality work, in the style of Van Dyck. I can't readily identify it with a painter, but the quality is better than the starting price would make you believe. UPDATE: sold for 1,600 Euro, still cheap but a lot more realistic than the 400 Euro...

Portraits by Van Dyck like the one above share a number of characteristics with the one for sale, but the Van Dyck is a lot more individual, less generic (or perhaps it's just that a somewhat older face has more character than the young one for sale). The one for sale also looks slightly more modern, perhaps because of the hairdo. In any case, it looks to be worth a lot more than the 400 Euro it is priced at.

Intriguing sleeper

The auction is finished by now, but I noticed it while it was ongoing. With an estimate of $370, it was at a bid of $3,400 with 16 different bidders after two weeks of online bidding and with still some 5 hours to go. At the Swedish auction house Metropol, it was described as "Unknown artist, portrait, damaged, 16th or 17th century, 26 by 19 cm". Even as such, it was interesting (and a low estimate), but I guess some people recognised either the artist or the sitter.

She reminds me a bit of the portrait of Elisabeth of Austria, Queen of France, by François Clouet. Obviously clearly inferior in execution, otherwise it wouldn't have been estimated so low, but the attitude, the clothing, and the face have a lot in common. Considering that that painting is from ca. 1571, and assuming that the one for sale is depicting a contemporary (which seems logical), it would narrow down the age of the painting to ca. 1570-1600.

Looking more in detail to the head of the portrait, the jewellery makes it clear that this was a rich and important person. I tried to compare her with some of the most important woman in Sweden in that period, but she looks better than e.g. Gunilla Bielke, Katarina Jagellonica or Kristina of Holstein. The one that comes closest is probably Anna of Austria, Queen Consort of Sweden.

But the similarities in make-up and position make them look more similar than they are, and assuming that both pictures are somewhat life-like, I don't think they are the same person (e.g. the forehead and the nose are different). I haven't found any other pictures of people with the same headdress, so I guess it will remain a mystery to me...

UPDATE 27 January 2015: The auction ended a few hours later, with two extra bidders, at 96,000 SEK or some 10,300 Euro! This was nothing less than 32 times the highest estimate.