Monday 26 October 2015

Lempertz "Antwerp Master, ca. 1520" adoration may be by the Master of 1518 or Pieter Coecke

Lempertz, from Germany, sell on 14 November 2015 a, "Antwerp Master, ca. 1520" Adoration of the Kings, estimated at 8,000 to 12,000 Euro.

Unlike many other interesting paintings in the auction, it has no further explanation about the artist, similar works, attribution, ... But the description seems to indicate that they were aware of the extremely similar works that exist by or from the circle of the so-called Master of 1518, an Anonymous Antwerp Master.

Perhaps the closest is the above central panel from a triptych now in the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, which is sometimes attributed to the Master of 1518, and sometimes (e.g. at the RKD) to a follower of him.

The Harvard Art Museums also own a triptych (again central panel shown) with the same image, attributed to the Master of 1518. This one varies a bit more from the one for sale, but the common origin is clear.

The Brera version is even further removed from the one at Lempertz, but still basically the same painting.

Of course, it would be too simple if there weren't different attributions floating around as well. The above, location unknown, can be found at RKD as "Studio of Pieter Coecke van Aelst", which would date it somewhat later perhaps. It is perhaps even closer to the one for sale than the first one I showed.

The RKD also lists a nearly identical one from the Princeton University Art collections. Other nearly identical ones are this one and this one.

In any case, the one for sale is very close to the above paintings (though only the central panel), and is probably good enough to be considered a Studio of Pieter Coecke or a close circle of Master of 1518 painting. It should be worth considerably more than the estimate, anything below 20,000 Euro seems cheap to me.

UPDATE: sold for 11,160 Euro, cheap in my opinion.

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