"Cats and Crayfish": Julius Adam?

Horta, from Brussels, sells on 24 April 2017 a "Belgian School, 19th century" painting of cats and crayfish, estimated at 1,800 to 2,200 Euro.

The work is very similar to some works by Julius Adam (1852-1913), perhaps the greatest German animalier of the 19th century, and certainly the most famous German cat painter. Many of his paintings are more sweet, gentle kittens, closer to the typical German porcelain painting art of the time, but some of his best works are vibrant, full of energy and mischief.

One work with the same theme, but much gentler, was sold at Dorotheum in 2016 for 11,000 Euro.

But the most similar is this one of "two young cats playing with a basket of crayfish". If it wasn't for this one (still in a private collection, as far as I can tell), I would be hard-pressed to defend the link with Adam apart from the obvious very high quality of the work for sale.

Most of his works are signed though, and this work seems to lack any signature, which is a pity. If it could definitely be attributed to Adam, it should be worth around 10,000 Euro. As an anonymous work (German or Belgian, doesn't matter), it should still easily fetch the estimate as it is a very good painting, capturing the essence and power of the cats perfectly.

UPDATE: sold for 1,600 Euro, seems cheap!

UPDATE 2: again for sale at Horta on 23 January 2018, still as an anonymous Belgian 19th century work, with an estimate of 1200 to 1500 Euro only. If I were the seller, I wouldn't have offered it again at the same auction house (where you only get the same bidders mostly) but somewhere else to improve its chances. Still, I believe this to be worth more as it is a very good work, decorative but not sentimental lifeless tripe.