Follower of Jacques de Gheyn

Cnock, from Belgium, sells on 12 February 2017 an "Attributed to J. De Gheyn (1565-1629)" Archer and Girl, without estimate.

Cnock is a rather strange auction house (judged by their website), with a poor website and no estimates, but they have some interesting works for sale anyway.

The painting is a variation on the probably most famous work by Jacques (or Jacob) de Gheyn, the Archer and the Milkmaid, an erotic/moralizing painting (the interpretation varies a bit, but in reality many Old Master paintings were outwardly moralizing but in reality shamelessly erotic or filled with double entendres). This version though lacks some of the more obvious titillating references, like the happy codpiece (it is still there, but hard to see), or the milkmaid actually holding the elbow of the archer. In fact, here is she is no longer a milkmaid with a completely filled milk jug (wink wink nudge nudge, how subtle these Masters were!), but a farmer girl with a bag.

Strangely, another identical (though slightly better painted) version of this work was sold in 2014 for 6,600 Swiss Francs at Koller.  I at first thought them to be the same work (with some cleaning and different lighting), but a closer look shows some differences (the bag of the girl, the cords on her bodice which are red in 2014 and black now, the plumes on her hat which end somewhat differently). This one was attributed to a Follower of  De Gheyn.

As the painting follows the direction of the engraving and not of the original drawing, it seems likely that it is based on the engraving, but made a it more acceptable for some not too progressive audience. It may well be a 17th-century copy, made by a competent but far from brilliant painter, and should be worth 2,000 to 3,000 Euro. A real De Gheyn painting of the same subject would probably fetch 50,000 Euro at the least, and a whole lot of more if it was truly well executed (one of his drawings made more than 1 million pounds in 2014, so there is potential here)

"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...

"Manner of Roelandt Savery" is follower of Frans Snyders

Carlo Bonte, from Belgium, sells on 21 March 2017 a "Unsigned, late 16th / early 17 century, in the manner of Roelandt Savery" Still Life with grapes and exotic birds, a panel painting estimated at 2,000 to 4,000 Euro.

The work doesn't resemble Savery (1576-1639) so much as it does some works by his contemporary Frans Snyders (1579-1657), from which it seems to have copied the style and the use of some birds, even though a straight copy is hard to find. The work isn't good enough to be a Snyders or even a Workshop of Snyders, and is probably best described as a Follower of Frans Snyders.  Late 16th century in any case is a bit optimistic for this work, which is firmly seventeenth century.

The grapes as such could be a by or after a number of painters, including Snyders. Grapes were among the most popular elements in still lifes. Even Savery used them sometimes, but they are a less typical element in his works.

But the birds are the most obvious link between this work and Snyders. Especially his multiple variations of the "Concert with Birds" contain some very similar examples.

For example the blue tit has a similar pose, but it isn't a real copy.

The hoopoe also is quite close.

As is the swallow.

I'm not quite sure what this rather twisted bird is supposed to be, but again something very similar appears in the works of Snyders.

It's almost as if someone had access to some now lost work by Snyders and copied it, or could use a lot of his preparatory drawings, and created a new  composition from them.

I haven't been able to find any other similar work (an outdoors scene where a lot of birds surround some bunches of grapes), usually you have indoor grapes with one or two small birds, or outdoor birds on a tree.

All in all, an unusual and remarkable work, but not by a major artist. The estimate seems about right, perhaps a bit low.

UPDATE: sold for 25,000 Euro, a bit low indeed!!

"Richter": Gustav Karl Ludwig Richter

Horta, from Belgium, sells on 21 February 2017 a "Richter 1860" Portrait of a Lady, estimated at 1,000 to 1,500 Euro.

It is a very good portrait, with some annoying damage though. The painting is signed and dated, but the auction house seems to have no idea who the painter might be.

Richter is sadly a rather common name, so there were quite a few possible matches for this work. Gerhard Richter is slightly later, or this would have been worth a fortune (I rarely discuss contemporary painters here, but Richter really has painted some wonderful works).

The most likely candidate for a luxury portrait of this quality is Gustav Karl Ludwig Richter (1823-1884), a German portraitist who worked for emperors, high nobility, generals, and the like. The topmost painting is a portrait of Princess Carolath, the bottom one is the portrait of an unknown woman, currently in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg.

Top: Madame Haritoff, Museum of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro. Bottom: Maria Alexandrovna of Edinburgh, in the Moscow State Historical Museum.

The work for sale is probably not as good as the royal or imperial commissions he got, but is still of very high quality (just look atthe way her hair is rendered, and the very expressive eyes). His works go for wildly varying amounts, sometimes only a few hundreds, sometimes more than 20,000 Euro, and no work of top quality seems to have come on the market in years. This work should be worth 3,000 to 4,000 Euro, although the (quite repairable) damage will limit the appeal somewhat.

UPDATE: sold for 550 Euro, someone has gotten a bargain

"C. Harch, German School" is Austrian Carl Hasch

Horta, from Brussels, sells on 20 February 2017 a "C. Harch, German School, 19th century" Duck pond, estimated at 650 to 850 Euro.

The signature reads more like Hasch instead of Harch, and with that name we can find Carl Hasch (1834-1897), an Austrian painter of landscapes. His works fetch usually around 4,000 Euro, sometimes as high as 10,000 Euro, but usually they are also better, more detailed and convincing.

He really was, without being in any way a revolutionary or exceptional painter, a very good artisan, producing some of the better classical landscapes of the period.

In the work for sale, the willows are very well captured, but the remainder is a bit too broadly painted, better than most amateur painters would do it but a far cry from the best Hasch works.

The above weak example by Hasch was sold for 750 Euro at Dorotheum in 2012, and the current one is better and somewhat larger as well. I can see this one go for at least 1,000 Euro.

UPDATE: sold for 800 Euro.

"17th century Descent from the Cross" seems to be earlier

Horta, from Belgium, sells on 20 February 2017 a "Flemish School, 17th century" Descent from the cross, estimated at 1,500 to 2,000 Euro.

It has what looks to be the original frame and text, which makes it extra interesting.

"O heere, in uw vijf wonden
hebben wij gratie gevonden"

"Oh lord, in your five wounds
we have found grace"

The painting looks to me as if a miniature painter suddenly was asked to worked on a larger scale (well, only 28 by 16 cm, clearly a work for private devotion), and had some trouble scaling everything. Especially the head of the Virgin is somewhat strange. But the painting overall remains a good work, even when seen up close, and should be the work of a good draughtsman (as it is more a coloured drawing than a real painting). It looks to me more like a work from the second half of the 16th century than an actual 17th century work though.

This Lamentation (the scene right after the Descent from the Cross, but they are often given the same title). reminds me of the works of Gerard David. If it really is 17th century, it is extremely archaic: most similar scenes were painted around 1570 at the latest.

I would estimate it at 3,000 Euro.

UPDATE: sold for 2,000 Euro.

"Flemish School" is Circle of Dirck Hals

Mercier, from France, sells on 12 February 2017 a "Flemish School, 17th century" interior with merry-making company, estimated at 1,000 to 1,500 Euro. Lot 236, page 44.

It is much more likely to be a Dutch work instead of Flemish, and seems to be from the circle of Dirck Hals (1591-1656), brother of Frans Hals. He wasn't the only one to paint such scenes (some works of e.g. Hendrick Pot or Pieter Codde are quite similar), but he is the best known and most prolific in this genre.

Dirck made many of these interior scenes, but usually painted a lot better. The one for sale has a good enough composition and some aspects are done quite convincingly (the rendering of the fabrics of the clothes). But the faces are very awkward, and the anatomy is otherwise a bit lacking as well (the heads are generally too big). The painting has a distinctly unfinished look, which to modern eyes isn't a bad thing, but I'm not certain that it is really unfinished and not simply done on the cheap side.

The estimate for the work seems about right, it is charming despite its major problems; but the description could have been better.