"Flemish School" is copy after Louis de Caullery

Horta, from Belgium, sells on 23 April 2018 a "Flemish School, 17th century" Bacchus, estimated at 6,000 to 8,000 Euro. It has an old attribution to Frans Francken.

It is a copy after Louis de Caullery, one of hs more common works, the Triumph of Bacchus

It is part of a series of similar works together with the Triumph of Venus and the Triumph of Ceres. The best, probably original version of these works can be seen together in Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen (although I can't find them on the Rosenborg website and had to rely on the RKD for these images).

The estimate is probably a bit high, 3,000 to 4,000 Euro seems more reasonable for a good but far from brilliant copy.

Yet another copy of a Francken (or more likely De Caullery) Golgotha

A short note about a Vanderkindere auction (Brussels, 23 February 2016). The "Circle of Francken" crucifixion is estimated at 1,400 to 1,600 Euro.

It is another version of the painting type I already discussed recently in this blog post, where the conclusion was that this type is more likely the work of the De Caullery Workshop than of the Francken Workshop. This is a fairly well executed example and should easily fetch the estimate.

UPDATE: a blog reader alerted me to yet another version of the same work, now for sale at Spanish auction  house Setdart, for 18 February 2016, estimated at a whopping 18,000 to 20,000 Euro! Needless to say that it will never fetch that much, considering that it is a good but far from brilliant version. It's at first glance a better version than the Vanderkindere one, but the larger image (almost every picture on my blog can be seen as a larger image!) shows that the faces, the white highlights, and other details are done rather crudely. Condition seems good though, but getting 5,000 Euro for this would be a big success.

UPDATE 2: sold for 1,500 Euro, as expected.

UPDATE 3: now for sale at DVC, from Ghent, as "School or Circle of Francken" and estimated at 1,000 to 2,000 Euro. Someone seems to have bought this with hopes of something better (though I wouldn't know what exactly, it didn't look like a real Caullery or Francken in the first place) and will now be lucky to get their money back.

"Painter unknown" at Bruun Rasmussen is a naive copy after Francken or Caullery

In a few moments, Bruun Rasmussen of Denmark will sell an "unknown painter, 17th-18th century" panel with the Crucufixion, estimated at 1,600 to 2,000 Euro.

It is a naive copy with variations of a Crucifixion by Frans Francken the Younger, now in a private collection.

Other elements come from a similar painting which also used to be attributed to Francken, but now, according to the RKD, comes from the Caullery Studios.

An internet search finds other very similar Caullery compositions, so that may be more correct. The above, sold at Christie's in 1998, is a very comparable example (e.g. the group in the bottom right corner is quasi identical, as are the three Marys). The current one is definitely not by either artist or studio though, as the quality really isn't good enough.

UPDATE: not sold.

Unfinished Caullery concert

Issaly & Pichon, from Cannes, France, sell on 23 October an "Attributed to Louis Caullery" concert, estimated at 2,000 to 3,000 Euro.

The painting is an unfinished version of Caullery's "Galant concert", known in at least two finished versions. One is in Macon, in the Ursulines Museum (pictured). It is fascinating to see how an existing painting is copied part by part, starting with the most important features (in this case, the many persons and the major interior elements), and how normally later the remaining elements are filled in, probably by younger or less skilled contributors, or even at another workshop.

Another copy, in a better condition and slightly closer to the one I'm discussing here, was for sale a few years ago at Galerie Jonckheere.

The quality of the work for sale is close enough to the finished work that for once an "attributed to" may safely be assumed to be the real deal. What's it worth? Art historically, a lot, as it gives an unusual (though far from unique) view into workshop practices. Artistically, it is a good painting by a well-known old master, but of course the unfinished state makes it awkward (more interesting or modern in some aspects). I think it should be worth more than the estimate, up to 10,000 Euro, but it's hard to predict this kind of one-off.