Follower of Jacques de Gheyn

Cnock, from Belgium, sells on 12 February 2017 an "Attributed to J. De Gheyn (1565-1629)" Archer and Girl, without estimate.

Cnock is a rather strange auction house (judged by their website), with a poor website and no estimates, but they have some interesting works for sale anyway.

The painting is a variation on the probably most famous work by Jacques (or Jacob) de Gheyn, the Archer and the Milkmaid, an erotic/moralizing painting (the interpretation varies a bit, but in reality many Old Master paintings were outwardly moralizing but in reality shamelessly erotic or filled with double entendres). This version though lacks some of the more obvious titillating references, like the happy codpiece (it is still there, but hard to see), or the milkmaid actually holding the elbow of the archer. In fact, here is she is no longer a milkmaid with a completely filled milk jug (wink wink nudge nudge, how subtle these Masters were!), but a farmer girl with a bag.

Strangely, another identical (though slightly better painted) version of this work was sold in 2014 for 6,600 Swiss Francs at Koller.  I at first thought them to be the same work (with some cleaning and different lighting), but a closer look shows some differences (the bag of the girl, the cords on her bodice which are red in 2014 and black now, the plumes on her hat which end somewhat differently). This one was attributed to a Follower of  De Gheyn.

As the painting follows the direction of the engraving and not of the original drawing, it seems likely that it is based on the engraving, but made a it more acceptable for some not too progressive audience. It may well be a 17th-century copy, made by a competent but far from brilliant painter, and should be worth 2,000 to 3,000 Euro. A real De Gheyn painting of the same subject would probably fetch 50,000 Euro at the least, and a whole lot of more if it was truly well executed (one of his drawings made more than 1 million pounds in 2014, so there is potential here)