Follower of Frans Pourbus II

At Rops, 12 April 2015, they sell a "Lady with a lace collar", "old painting" estimated at 200 to 300 Euro. The back looks a bit dodgy, but overall it seems to be a real old painting, not a recent fake, as far as one can tell from a picture. UPDATE: sold for 550 Euro.


The style is very reminiscent of the portraits by Frans Pourbus II, but the quality isn't there to attribute it directly to him (even taking into account possible restaurations and overpaint, e.g. in the very bland hair). But the way the lace is painted, the face, and the overall feeling of the portrait (which has probably been changed in size sometime in the past, as the composition is unbalanced now) clearly show his influence.

A similar but real Pourbus portrait (the difference is quite obvious) sold at Sotheby's for more than 500,000 Euro in 2014.

This "Circle of Pourbus" was sold at Bonhams in 2012 for £4,625. Another possible influence is Paulus Moreelse, who painted portraits at the same time and in the same style, but again this clearly isn't a real Moreelse. But whether you want to put it as follower of one or the other, it still is a cheap example of decent quality of this type of portrait and artist. Whether it will improve with some cleaning is a guess though.