"Dutch mannerist, ca. 1600" is copy after Marten de Vos

Hampel, from Germany, sells on 6 December 2018 a "Dutch Mannerist, ca. 1600" Family image of Christ, a small (21 by 27 cm) oil on copper estimated at 6,000 to 8,000 Euro.

I always have trouble remembering what the common name for this image is, but some searching refreshed my memory: the "Holy Kinship" or the "Kinship of the Virgin".

The description of this work indicates that it has an attribution to Goltzius, and the auctioneer sees some similarities with the work of Cornelis de Vos. I see no similarities at all with his work though, I guess the auctioneer just pointed to the wrong de Vos. Cornelis (1584-1651) is a typical, very good Baroque painter in the style of Rubens and the like, best known for his beautiful family portraits and portraits of children. Maerten de Vos (1532-1603) (no family of Cornelis) is two generations removed from Cornelis, and paints in a completely different tradition and style, initially close to Frans Floris, later in a more individual, modern style.

And sure enough, the work for sale is a rather run-of-the-mill copy after Maerten de Vos, a very good work by him from the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent, there titled the "Family of Saint Anne". It's a large oil on canvass, 135 by 170 cm, from 1585, so quite different from the copy here.

I doubt this work will fetch the estimate, if people realise that it simply is a copy (or just look at the lack of quality of course).