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.

A bas-relief after Rubens

Vanderkindere, from Belgium, sells on 15 October 2019 a "Flemish School, late 17th century" ivory bas-relief of the Judgment of Paris, estimated at 4,000 to 6,000 Euro.

The composition is remarkable, since it is taken from a painting by Rubens now in the Prado! It seems rather unusual to find such a work, already valuable at the time, which copies a painting instead of being an original composition. Something for the demanding Rubens' collector who wants something beyond their original paintings or drawings ;-) It is based on the (at the time) lesser known of the two versions of this story painted by Rubens, the other version was much more widely distributed tohrough engravings. Why and how this one was chosen is unclear.

Oh, and the hand coloured engraving attributed to Wierick Somers seems to be some misunderstanding: this set of engravings, coming from the "Théatre de la cruauté" by Richard Verstegen, is usually attributed to Johannes Wierix (an engraver), and not to Wierick Somers (same period, but a goldsmith).

UPDATE: sold for 6,400 Euro.

Workshop(?) copy after Rubens

Maison Jules, from Belgium, sells on 1 June 2019 an "attributed to Jan Thomas van Ieperen, school of Rubens" Finding of Moses, estimated at 4,000 to 6,000 Euro.

It is a rather monochrome, dark copy after Rubens: a much better version was sold at Lempertz in 2017 for 148,800 Euro. The version for sale has about the same dimensions, if one takes into account the missing borders on all sides. Jan Thomas van Ieperen (1618-1673) was probably active in the workshop of Rubens before hje moved to Austria and worked as a court painter.

If the work for sale would clean up to reveal something resembling the Lempertz version, then it is obviously way too cheap now. But that is for me hard to judge from the picture, although it seems unlikely that someone would deliberately have painted a night version of this work.

It wouldn't surprise me if this went for 20,000 Euro instead.

UPDATE: not sold apprantly, I guess it looked worse in reality.

"Audience with the pope" is copy after Rubens' "The four church fathers"

DVC, from Belgium, sells on 27 October 2018 a "17th / 18th century" "Audience with the Pope", estimated at 1,000 to 2,000 Euro.

While the painting clearly contains a pope and others, it would be a very strange "audience" with a semi-nude man, a lion, a dove and some putti.

It is a depiction of the 4 main Roman Catholic church fathers, Saint Ambrose (with the beehive), pope Gregory the Great (with a dove), Saint Augustine (with the bleeding heart), and Saint Jerome (with the lion). The original painting was by Rubens (lost? I couldn't find an image or location for it), but it is known through copies, including a painting by Jacob Jordaens (RKD) and an engraving by Cornelis Galle (Rijksmuseum).

This a rather rare work, some other paintings by Rubens have been copied much more often, and because of its art historical importance (and relative quality) it should easily fetch the estimate.

"Flemish School" is copy after Rubens

Pandolfini, from Italy, sells on 13 February 2018 a "Flemish School, 17th century" Bacchic scene with a satyr, estimated at 8,000 to 12,000 Euro.

Some other versions of the same work have appeared at auction over the last few years.

The first one was sold as a "Follower of Rubens", lacks the upper half of this work, and has a tigress instead of some dog.

The second was described as "circle of Rubens" and has the same satyr, but is even more different in other aspects.

All seem to go back to a composition by Rubens. I haven't found the original, but an engraving by Lucas Vorsterman can be found at the Rijksmuseum. While the satyr and animal clearly are taken from this work, all copies have putti which this version of the original hasn't. So it may well be that another Rubens original exited with these variations.

The work for sale has some good elements, and overall it is a good composition, but the work is very brown  (and unlikely to become colourful when cleaned, I think), and has many elements which are rather sketchy as well (as in the second image). This is not du to the scale of the work; it is a large canvas, 174 by 126 cm, so such deficiencies will be more apparent in real life.

"South Italian, style of Caravaggio" is copy after Rubens

Hampel, from Germany, sells on7 December 2017 a "South Italian, first half of the 17th century, style of Caravaggio" Give unto Caesar, estimated at 4,000 to 6,000 Euro.

It is a reverse copy after Peter Paul Rubens, "Tribute Money", now in the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco. The estimate seems rather high as it is not the best painted version (e.g. the Jesus is rather poor).

15K€ "In the style of Rubens (Workshop?)" is simply a copy after Rubens

Hampel, from Germany, sells on 28 September 2017 a Magdalene, estimated at 15,000 to 25,000 Euro.

It is described as "Farbkomposition in der bewussten Farbtrias von Rot, Blau und Seidenweiß, dazwischen kontrastierend das Braun-Gold des Haares über der linken Schulter. Sowohl Bildaufbau, als auch die Charakteristik der Gesichtswiedergabe weisen auf eine enge Beziehung zu Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) hin." and attributed to "Flämischer Maler in der Rubensnachfolge (Werkstatt?)"

Google translated this gives  "Color composition in the deliberate color triangles of red, blue and silk white, contrasting the brown-gold of the hair above the left shoulder. Both the composition of the picture and the characteristics of the facial reproduction point to a close relationship with Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)"

Well, duh. It is a partial copy after a well-known Rubens from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, which adequately explains why the composition, colouring, ... so clearly point to Rubens. What remains is a comparison of the quality of painting with the original and with other works of Rubens or his workshop.

 

And while this is a well-painted copy, it is not good enough to live up to the expectations (or estimate) raised by Hampel. All delicacy of the original is lost, the nuances are replaced with rather indiscriminate touches, the colouring is bland. This may be a 5,000 Euro copy, but never a 15,000 to 25,000 Euro one.

"Attributed to Cornelis Schut" is copy after Rubens

Chiswick, from the UK, sells on 3 October 2017 an "Attributed to Cornelis Schut" Lamentation, estimated at 5,000 to 7,000 Euro.

It is a well-painted but somewhat flat copy after the Lamentation by Rubens from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, and as such it is hard to actually attribute it to an artist. Schut was presumably a pupil of Rubens, and worked in a similar style, but the copy here is not exceptionally good or distinctive so no good reason to attach it to one name seems to be present.

The value seems a bit on the high side, but good Ruben' copies tend to fetch remarkably high prices sometimes.

"Unsigned, 17th century" is good copy after Rubens

Carlo Bonte, Belgium, sells on 21 March 2017 an "Unsigned, 17th century" Veronica drying the face of Christ, estimated at 500 to 800 Euro.

This clearly Flemish High Baroque painting has a great composition and some very good elements, but other parts are a bit unfinished, so it seemed probable that it was a copy of a better work. Still, it looks to be done by a fairly accomplished artist.

Some searching lead me to Rubens (who else), but as it is not one of his best known works (and at the price an interesting copy), I list it here anyway.

The Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels has a later version of this composition (bottom image), which clearly reuses a number of elements.The sketch from the Rijksmuseum (top) shows how the composition changed a few times, but how things like the man pushing the cross, and the positions of Jesus and Mary, stay virtually the same.

The composition from the painting for sale can be seen in this sketch from the Berkeley Art Museum. I couldn't immediately find an actual, finished painting though;perhaps an engraving was made after this preliminary idea (from ca. 1632), and then the composition got changed a few times before the final painting from Brussels was made (circa 1635).

Another, supposedly very early version (ca. 1612-1615), is kept in the Museum of Warsaw, but it doesn't seem to be good enough to be by Rubens at first glance, and the colours seem different from what one expects from a Rubens as well. Perhaps it's a condition issue.

The work for sale is clearly a copy after the 1632 Paulus Pontius engraving of the work, and not a straight copy after the painting. This means that the painter has added his own colours here, which are very well chosen, and again show the quality of the copy and the talent of the copyist.

Some details also reveal a painter who clearly knew what he was doing and captured light and tone just right. Some elements, especially the folds on the big man on the left, are less convincing and distract a bit (they are too much a copy of the style of the engraving, and not painted in their own right), but overall this is a very nice work, one of the better copies after an engraving one can find, and one of the less common Rubenses to find a copy off. The price is fairly low and it would surprise me if this went for less than 1,000 Euro, and might reach 2,000 on a good day.

As a bonus, I tried my hand at something I rarely do, analyzing composition. This was prompted by noticing he only real difference between the work for sale and the engraving, in the trees at the top. With this change the copyist loses the "S"-line which goes from the middle of the top to the left, middle, bottom right, and again to bottom middle via the children.

This seems to be one of the three main lines of the composition, the others being a curve from bottom left to top left, and a double diagonal from bottom right to top left. I'm not good at drawing, so take this for what's it worth.Perhaps a fourth (double) line is needed, going from the main line of the cross to the head of Mary, and from the feet of the man pushing the cross over the road and the line of shadows to the hands of Mary, to counterbalance the double diagonal. All in all, and what I wanted to show, is that the original is a finely balanced work with the typical multiple viewing lines of a great Baroque work, and that the alteration done in this copy somewhat shifts the balance and loses one line of view (through probably the least important and obvious).

UPDATE: sold for 20,000 Euro instead! I really am way too conservative  with these...

... But "Copy after Rubens" is copy after Van der Weyden instead!

While my previous post was about an unrecognised copy after Rubens (which happens fairly often, though rarely so spectacular as with that one), this post is about the much rarer opposite.

Sceaux, from France, sells on 11 December 2016 a "Flemish School, 17th century" descent from the cross, "After the painting by Rubens from the Antwerp Cathedral", estimated at 1,500 to 2,500 Euro.

The Rubens looks like this. Not really similar...

The origin of the work for sale is of course the Van der Weyden I have already highlighted multiple times (perhaps the most often copied of the 15th century Flemish Primitive paintings?). This one is a very late and colourful copy, with some variations compared to the original. It will struggle to fetch the lower estimate.But the description made me smile :-)

"Attributed to Frans Francken III" is copy after Rubens...

Galerie Moderne, from Belgium, sells on 13 December 2016 an "Attributed to Frans Francken III" Adoration of the Magi, estimated at 12,000 to 15,000 Euro.

Too bad that it's a reversed copy after a Rubens from the Louvre. A fairly well-known work in fact...

As a rather good but smallish copy, it is probably worth 2,000 to 3,000 Euro.

UPDATE: sold for 8,000 Euro, way more than I expected, but well below the estimate. Perhaps someone surprised that it didn't have a higher reserve? 

8,000€ "Anonymous" is copy after Rubens

Cambi, from Italy, sells on 15 November 2016 an "Anonymous, 17th century" Susanna and the elders, estimated at 8,000 to 10,000 Euro.

It is a large (116 by 167 cm) reverse copy with some modifications after Rubens, here shown in an engraving by Lucas Vorsterman from 1620. While it is a well-painted work with some nice variations, it still seems a very high valuation for an anonymous copy, and it would surprise me if this gets any bids over 5,000 Euro.

UPDATE: unsold, as expected.

"Dutch or Flemish, possibly based on Abraham Blomaert" is copy after Rubens

La Suite Subastas, from Spain, sells on 27 October 2016 a "Dutch or Flemish School, last third of the 17th entury" Virgin and child, "Possibly following the models of the Virgin and Child by the Dutch painter Abraham Blomaert (1566 - 1651)", estimated at 3,000 to 5,000 Euro.

It has nothing to do with Bloemaert and simply is a copy after Rubens, a Virgin and Child with versions in the Hermitage and the Metrolopitan Museum, so not some obscure work. I already discussed this work in a blog post in February 2015.

This version is allright, nothing exceptional but not the worst either. The estimate may be slightly too high.

They have the same problem with their lot 50, a "16th Cnetury Flemish School" which is also a copy after Rubens (and so obviously not 16th century). It's not the first time that copies after this Rubens have been described as 16th century for some reason, I described a similar situation in August 2015.  The estimate of 5,000 to 7,000 is too high for this copy.