Circle of Paul Bril

Arce, auction house in Barcelona, sells on 3 June a "Dutch School, 17th or 18th century" landscape with people, estimated at 1,200 Euro.

It looks like a poor man's version of the works of Paul Bril (1554-1626), famous and quite popular Flemish painter. Many Bril-like paintings were made during and following his life, so it is not unusual to find this. A somewhat better "Circle of Bril" sold at Christie's in 2014 for 23,750 Euro.

A similar composition to the one for sale is the above "Conversion of Paul". The two successive bridges, the colour scheme, the way your eye weaves crisscross across the canvas to explore the story and the landscape... it seems obvious that our painting is based on the works of Bril, but also that the quality of a real Bril is missing. Still, the estimate seems very low for this work.

Frozen adoration

Some paintings are iconographically simply weird. While the epiphany, the adoration of the magi, happened in winter, it is rather unusual to see it depicted with a completely frozen port in the background. The painting almost looks as if someone has pasted two halves together, one with a wintery landscape and one with an adoration, since they shared the season or something. It lacks the integration similar works by Brueghel have, where the adoration is part of the winter scene, not next to it.

For sale at Arce lot 1418, described as Dutch School, 17th century, and measuring 100 by 145 cm, it is estimated at 1,900 Euro.  I don't see a lot of Dutch influence in it, but it is so weird that anything is possible basically.