Could this 19th c. drawing sold by Cambi be a major Raphael sleeper?

Cambi, from Italy, sold last week an "Italian School, early 19th century" large (100 by 84 cm) drawing "in the Renaissance style", estimated at 400 to 500 Euro.

Instead, it sold for 40,000 Euro.

So, what could be the reason? Well, the sitter and her pose look suspiciously like a Raphael portrait, "La Donna Gravida", from the Palazzo Pitti. The drawing is obviously done by a very skilled artist (and the estimate was very low in any case, even for a random 19th century drawing of this quality). Could this be a real Raphael, completely misjudged by the auction house? It seems quite possible, without having handled the actual work (and not having seen e.g. the back of it), and in that case this is a major find and at 40K a major bargain for whoever spotted it and took the risk.

Perhaps it will reappear in a few months or years time and we will know more then. For now, it is just nice to speculate a bit.

Facescapes

Koller West, from Switzerland, sells on 18 March 2016 a "Flemish, 17th century" pair of landscapes in the form of the face of a woman, estimated at 1,200 to 1,800 Euro. Well, I don't know if they sell it, it is listed at The Saleroom as Koller lot 6430, but the online auction catalogue at Koller jumps from lot 6429 to 6431. Still, it is an interesting piece, so here goes.

This kind of "anthropomorphic" or "mimetic" landscape is typically Flemish from the 16th and early 17th century, and relatively rare, so this is / would have been a very cheap example.

A very, very close example to the one for sale here was sold as a pair at Christie's in 2004: that pair fetched $45,000!

Another pair with the same images can be found in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels.

The faces are sometimes over-elaborate, but the paintings are filled with tiny fun details, e.g. the necklace of the woman being made from a flock of sheep. 

Comparing images based on online images is tricky, but these seem to be museum quality pieces that should have been estimated at 20,000 Euro instead of 1,200 Euro. Perhaps that's why they have been removed from the auction catalogue (for now at least)?

Sleepers and what happens next: the Sotheby Babel

Sotheby's has in its Old Master sale a "Flemish School, 17th Century" Tower of Babel, estimated at $200,000 to $300,000.

It's a very nice example, not easily placed in the works of a known artist or even closely related to most of the other similar Flemish Babel towers.

It was last sold in October 2014 at Nagel, German auction house. They had estimated it at only 15,000 Euro, but fierce bidding saw it soar to 210,000 Euro. A real sleeper, but slightly more than a year later, it only gets the same estimate as what it sold for two years ago, and without the benefit of being "fresh to the market" (Sotheby's omits the provenance and auction history with a reason, of course). It will be interesting to see if it will sell and if it will make another profit.

UPDATE: sold for $418,000, so about double the previous price and incomparable to the original 15,000 Euro estimate of October 2014!

Not every sleeper is a good buy...

Perhaps not really a sleeper, but usually if someone pays three times the estimate, it is because they see something in the work the auctioneer has missed.

In January 2013 at Christie's, a "Studio of Rubens" was estimated at $50,000, but sold for $170,500 instead.

Now, the same work is for sale at Dorotheum (in Austria) on 20 October 2015, as "Attributed to Rubens", but with an estimate of 60,000 to 80,000 Euro, or about the same as the previous one. It has been cleaned in the two years since, revealing a lot of extra details (the complete background has changed), but nothing that improved the attribution or value. Ouch...

Potential sleeper

Versailles, French auction house, sold on 21 July 2015 a "17th century Italian school" drawing, estimated at 150 to 200 Euro.

It sold for a rather surprising 10,208 Euro instead, suggesting that some people recognised the hand of a known artist in this. The inscriptions read (approximately) "Renone fiume" and "Bachilione fiume". The Bacchiglione is a river in Northern Italy (Vicenze, Padua). In Vicenza, there is also a Retrone river, which ends in the Bacchiglione.

I haven't got a clue who might be the artist behind this, the drawing in itself doesn't warrant the price.

A reader pointed me to some similar drawings by Giorgio Vasari, but those ones were better than the one sold now. But it certainly is the closest I've come yet to identifying this one!

Sleeper drawing of the year?

A reader kindly alerted me to what may have been the sleeper drawing of the year. At Ader in Paris, in an auction of old drawings, they sold the above study of arms, Italy, 16th century. Estimated at 400 to 500 euro, it apparently (I haven't yet seen it confirmed) sold for 200,000 Euro. That's right, 200,000 Euro for a study of arms!

I suppose some bidders recognised the artist, I suppose we should be looking towards Michelangelo or someone similar. I guess the drawing will reappear in a major sale or exhibition soon with a more spectacular attribution.

Any guesses on who the artist may have been, or what it was a study for, are more than welcome!

UPDATE: apparently (and probably correctly) it has been bought as a drawing by Jusepe de Ribera. Seems a bit expensive, in that case, but a nice discovery nevertheless. I can just imagine the dismay when the bidders realised that they weren't the only ones to have spotted it.

Dutch treat: a sleeper gift for the 100th post!

As this is my 100th blog post, I thought I'ld make my regular readers happy with my (in my opinion) most important sleeper discovery so far.

At Giafferi, in Paris, they sell on 3 April 2015 a "Dutch School, 17th century" "Portrait of a young woman with a pair of gloves", measuring 114 by 79 cm and estimated at 6,000 to 8,000 Euro.

I'm pretty certain (though obviously this is opinion, not a guaranteed expert report) that it is in fact a typical portrait by Ferdinand Bol (1616-1680), one of the most talented and sought-after pupils of Rembrandt.

The sitter is not the most charming, which at first may give the impression that the painting isn't that good. But in fact it looks to be perfect in even the smallest details, with the hands painted brilliantly, the textures of the clothes, jewellery, chair all life-like, and the face as individual as one could wish for. Whether it is by Bol or not, it is the best "Dutch School" portrait I have seen for that kind of money in recent months, and should fetch at least 25,000 Euro (I wouldn't be surprised, if it is as good as it looks to be, to see it in a big auction soon with an estimate of some 50,000 Euro). These kind of paintings rarely turn up, and to get it at 6,000 Euro would be a real bargain.

UPDATE: in what is a major reality check for this blog, the painting was not sold. Apparently I was the only one convinced that this was a good work by a known artist, and not some work by a follower of these... I'll try to find a better sleeper for my 200th post, and keep an eye out to see if this one resurfaces elsewhere or with a different valuation.

You can compare this painting with the "A lady with a fan" in the National Gallery. Note that the portrait for sale, apart from the two gloves, also has a fan in her hand. Both sitters have nearly the same necklace-pendant, and the same hairdo. This sitter also isn't the most striking beauty, but has character and individuality.

Another comparable portrait is the "Portrait of a woman" in the Met. Same hairdo, same kind of broche, same type of sitter.

Now, Bol wasn't the only one to paint this type of portrait, one can find similar works by Herkules Sanders, Frans Hals even, and a number of good Dutch School examples. But to me, this looks too much like Ferdinand Bol to not attribute it to him, as far as that can be determined from an online picture. If someone here sees it in the flesh, so to speak, and would like to give their comments on it, I'ld be grateful!

Second thoughts

Between writing this post and publishing it, I tried to look into this a little more, and I'm not so sure any more. I'm very sure that this is a very good painting, by a highly accomplished Dutch portraitist. But without seeing the painting myself, I don't think I can confidently place it with Ferdinand Bol and not with e.g. Johannes Verspronck, who made quite a few similar paintings (especially the bottom one is really good and comparable). Versproncks paintings seem a bit more "Flemish", full-blooded, than the quite restrained Bol paintings, which fits more closely with the one for sale.

And then there is someone like Bartholomeus Van der Helst, whose work is often quite different from the portrait for sale (and often simply worse), but who was quite capable of producing something like this. The second example above sold for 350,000 Euro at Christie's in 2010, so it's not as if the painting is automatically worthless (well, less than 10,000 Euro or so) if it isn't by Bol and doesn't feature a handsome young woman (a good Verspronck doesn't come cheap either).

Whoever buys this work will probably need to do some good research, comparing not just the subject type but actual painting styles, before a definitive attribution can be reached (if ever). I just would love to know the eventual conclusion!

On the other hand, this painting may be attributed to Ferdinand Bol by the auction house Clars and is only half as expensive, but it is miles further away from a real Bol than the one I present here. It looks more French than Dutch to me.

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.