Some results

I sometimes don't post about an interesting auction because I or someone I know has bid on it. It's not the smartest move to draw everyone's attention to something you want to buy of course :-)

At Carlo Bonte, Belgian auction house, they sold on 3 June 2015 a "Non signed, St. Hiëronymus, late 16thC" estimated at 800 to 1,200 Euro. It is a good example of a well-known type of painting, mainly attributed to Marinus van Reymerswaele but also sometimes to Pieter Coecke (him again!) or Joos van Cleve (as in the RKD, which lists a whole lot of them).

The above sold in October 2014 at Segre Subastas (Spain) for 3,800 Euro as an "attributed to Reymerswaele". Many variations and copies turn up in auction lists, of varying quality and prices. But none was as cheap as the estimate on this one. As could be expected, it sold for 4,200 Euro instead.

Another one I followed was the above Saint Cristopher, descibed as "German School, 16th century" by a French auction house, estimated at 300 Euro only. We thought it closer to Herri met de Bles, and worth a lot more. It ended at 6000 Euro instead, although the auction house now lists it as unsold? Considering the serious damage (those white parts aren't clouds...), some people must have seen the same potential in it.

I had also tipped a contact about the above lot at Ruellan, in Paris, where it was described as "Follower of Rubens" and estimated at 2,000 to 3,000 Euro.

I believed that that follower might be Artus Wolffort, who used the same head, in the same style, in his own work. Apparently I was the only one with that belief, as the painting remained unsold.