Monday 11 April 2016

"Spanish, 19th, signed Zanacols": a work by Eduardo Zamacois y Zabala?

Horta, from Brussels, sells on 18 April 2016 a "Spanish school, 19th century" work signed Zanacols, estimated at 800 to 1,200 Euro.

It looks to me as if the signature isn't Zanacols but Zamacois, for Eduardo Zamacois y Zabala (1841-1871), well-known Spanish painter despite his death aged 29. In 2006-2007 he was the subject of an exhibition at the Museum of Bilbao.

His most expensive works are finely detailed genre works, quite different from the one for sale (and with another style of signature as well). But he has also made more realistic, observational works, closer to the one here. None of these works is in such a loose, almost impressionistic style though: is this just a good sketch, a style he soon abandoned (or didn't have the time to pursue due to his death), or an indication that the work is not by Zamacois after all?

No idea, I surely like it, it is very well painted, the colouring and composition are skillfully done, not the work you would expect from a forger (or from a weaker work where someone has put the name Zamacois on).

The above is an example of his more realistic works, from a Sotheby's sale in 2008 (unsold though).

An example of a signature given on Findartistinfo.com certainly is similar to the one on the work here, but like I said, other works (certainly genuine) sometimes have a quite different signature, so... I don't have enough information to decide whether this is a real but unusual Zamaicos, or an unrelated work someone put his name on. If the former, then it certainly is cheap.

UPDATE: sold for 420 Euro only, people clearly didn't believe in it. 

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