Roelant Savery: central figure comes from Michelangelo...

Sala Retiro, from Spain, sells on 22 February 2017 an "Attributed to Roelant Savery" Rape of Ganymede, estimated at 26,000 Euro.

They already tried to sell it about a year ago, then with an estimate of 35,000 Euro.

It is a remarkable painting, I can't find another work by Savery which resembles it. What I did find though was the origin of the figure of Ganymede. I first noticed it in a remarkable painting by Battista Franco (1510-1561) from the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. It depicts the Battle of Montemurlo with the Rape of Ganymede. The Battle of Montemurlo is a 1537 battle where the troops of Cosimo I de Medici defeated the opponents of the Medici family rule in the city and effectively made the Medici the rulers of the city for a long period.

Close-ups of the two Ganymedes clearly show that the Savery is nearly identical the earlier Franco The setting is completely different though, instead of a majestic battle and a heavenly meal, you get a lonely shepherd dog looking up at the scene. I don't really know which of the two is the weirdest, but the Savery is certainly the closest to the original story.

But the trail of breadcrumbs doesn't end with Franco; he was heavily influenced by Michelangelo, and this figure is also originally an invention of Michelangelo. Although the original is lost, we have copies of his drawing in the collections of a few museums, including the Fogg Art Museums in Harvard, and the Royal Collection in Windsor Castle (shown above).

An engraving of this work, with the dog at the bottom, was made soon afterwards by Marcantonio Raimondi, one of the most important engravers of the Italian masters of the first half of the 16th century; it seems likely that this engraving was the actual inspiration for Savery (or whoever painted this Flemish-looking version). The dog as well is rather similar, but the distance between dog and master is vastly increased, and the background is completely changed.

25,000 Euro still seems rather expensive, but it is an unusual and well executed painting from the circle of Savery, so it certainly has a considerable value.

UPDATE: again not sold, and for sale a third time on  12 December 2017 with an again lowered estimate of 19,000 Euro.