Thursday 17 September 2015

Venetian School, 2nd half 17th century may be a Carlo Maratta

Hampel, from Germany, sells on 24 September 2015 a "Venetian School, 2nd half of the 17th century" Flora, a large (135 by 95 cm) work estimated at 10,000 to 15,000 Euro.

It is an alternative version or very good copy of a work by Carlo Maratta, which sold at Van Ham in 2008 for 175,000 Euro. The description of this one drops a lot of names, but Maratta isn't one of them, so apparently the auction house wasn't aware of this other work.

The one from 2008 had much better colours, but apart from that no obvious quality difference can be seen in the photos (it may be there in the flesh, so to speak). If this is really a work by Maratta, it should be worth closer to 50,000 Euro than the estimated 10,000 Euro. If it is a copy after the other work, the estimate seems about right (a lot for a copy, but it is a very attractive work even if it is currently too dark).

UPDATE: not sold, again for sale on 7 April 2016 at Hampel, now as "Roman", still no mention of Maratta though, and with a lower estimate of 7,000 to 9,000 Euro. A steal, in my opinion.

UPDATE 2: and again for sale (Hampel, 30 June 2016), back to being Venetian, still no mention of Maratta, and the estimate again reduced, now to 4,000 to 6,000 Euro. It seems that no one sees the qualities in it that I perceive (or everyone but Hampel sees it as a copy after Maratta and believes it to be too recent?).

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