"Flemish School, 18th century": Adriaen de Greyff?

Dreweatts & Bloomsbury, from England, sell on 13 July 2016 a "Flemish School, 18th century" hunting still life, estimated at £2,000 to £3,000.

The frame bears a label for "Anton Grief 1670-1715. No such painter exists, but in older catalogues I can find the same name, and link it to Adriaen de Grijef  (1657-1722), a nice example of the progress of the purely factual aspects of art history.

A real, comparable (though somewhat larger) De Grijef was sold at Christie's in 2012 for £11,250. The quality of that work is somewhat better than the one for sale now, but they are clearly from the same school.

Other examples, as can be found at RKD (which helpfully assembles all different methods of writing his name in one list, which e.g. a Google search can't do), also are very similar in their individual elements.

As a work from the School or Workshop of De Grijef, the estimate on this one seems somewhat conservative. The rather strange way the dog on the left is cut off by the frame suggests that this painting may have been cut down at some time in the past though, which makes it somewhat less attractive.

Painting reappears as "Spanish School", but still looks Dutch to me

Quite often I see a painting I discussed reappear at a later auction. I usually note this with an update in the original blog post only, but this one is more interesting.

Tradart, from France, sells on 17 July 2016 a painting that was sold in Brussels in February 2016. It then fetched 1,100 Euro and is now estimated at 1,000 to 1,500 Euro, so apparently the hopes for a profit didn't work out quite so well. The original auction gave no country of origin but a date of 1673: the new auction describes it as "Spanish" but only indicates 17th century. Was the date a later addition or do they hope to avoid people finding the earlier auction too easily?

To me it still looks Dutch, not Spanish at all, and most other examples I have noted with similar red and gold or silver undergarments usually were Dutch as well. Look at woman portraits from this period by Luttichuys, Terborch, Van der Helst, ... A few English and Italian paintings have a somewhat similar pose, but usually not with the kind of dress seen here. But no Spanish examples I'm aware of. I still believe it is worth a bit more than the estimate, but perhaps not with this description.

UPDATE: unsold, again for sale with same estimate and description at Tradart Deauville on 9 October 2016. A hard sell, this one. 

The same auction also has an Italian Virgin and Child, which they first offered in April. I tweeted about it then: it is a simplified copy after Giampetrino. Still, at 1,200 to 1,500 Euro it offers good value for money.

How to turn a "Parable of the Wedding Banquet" into a "Wedding at Cana"

Neumeister, from Germany, sells on 6 July 2016 a "Parable of the Wedding banquet" by Simon de Vos and the Francken Workshop, estimated at 8,000 to 10,000 Euro.

Van Ham sold the above "Wedding at Cana" by Francken for 9,500 Euro.

So, what does one have to do? Change Christ to some king, and change the people in the garden to a man being dropped in a well. Add or remove some details at random, and you have a new painting with a new subject!

The one for sale now is in a worse condition than the Van Ham example. It is in parts by a different hand, but it's hard to tell which one is better.

This clearly better version is unlikely to hit the market soon as it is safe in the collection of the Hermitage. it is by Frans Francken II and may be the base composition all these other ones are copied from. The one for sale is one of the more original ones though, the Cana version is much more common than the Parable version.

Italian 16th c. pietà is copy after Carracci

Neumeister, from Germany, sells on 6 July 2016 an "Italy, 2nd half 16th c." Pieta, estimated at 2,000 to 3,000 Euro.

It's a powerful painting, but dirty and damaged and perhaps painted somewhat simplistic. It looks later than the 16th c., I would guess 17th c.

Searching for an artist or origin, I came across art shop Rubylane.com, which sells an "18th c. Baroque" pieta with the same composition, but with differences (e.g. a putto instead of John the Baptist).

Both turn out to be adapted reversed copies of a Pietà by Annibale Carracci from ca. 1600, which makes it clear that auction dating is some 100 years (or more) off. The copies, reversed and with different colours, are likely based off an engraving and not from the original painting. Whether that makes it worth more or less than the estimate depends on how much you like it, it certainly won't be worth much more. I do wonder how much the Rubylane site charges for their copy though!