Lost and found: could this be the long-lost original Quentin Massys known through many copies?

Duran, from Madrid, sold on 27 September 2018 a "Flemish School, 19th century" Lamentation, 98 by 68 cm, oil on canvas, estimated at 1,500 Euro.

It immediately caught my eye as it has all the characteristics of a good Early Netherlandish painting from the early 16th century, and looks way too good to be a 19th century copy / fake / pastiche.

I contacted another lover of these paintings, and together we went searching for more information and clues. They soon found other versions of the same composition, attributed to followers of Quentin Massys. These ranged from much reduced ones, e.g. a "Circle of Massys" at Christie's, (sold for an excessive £26,000) to much more similar ones like this "follower of" at Koller (sold for 12,000 Swiss Francs).

Comparing the work for sale with other Massys works, and the copies we found, I got convinced that this was an original ca. 1500 work, either the actual (lost) original by Massys, or a very good workshop copy. My contact pointed out one major problem though; all known Massys works are on panel, and this one was on canvas.

This probably was the reason the auction house thought it to be a 19th century copy, but close analysis of the work (not live, but through detailed images) made it much more likely that this beautiful painting had suffered the dreadful fate many similar works had suffered in the 19th century, and was transferred from panel to canvas. This damages the painted surface and destroys things like the underpainting, and of course removes many aids in actually dating the work, e.g. through dendrochronology.

The closest version we found was through the RKD,  a copy for sale at Charlton Hall Galleries in 1950: it had nearly the exact same composition right down to the details, but the execution was less precise, less convincing, especially in the face of the virgin (work for sale added below it for easy comparison).

I loved the painting, but didn't dare to believe that it was the actual original. Perhaps the hands of the virgin weren't executed with enough skill? But it seems that at least a few buyers went all the way as it sold for 110,000 Euro. Which would be escessive for a relined good copy, but for an actual original, even with these problems, would be a good buy, whether it is for a collector, a museum, or someone hoping to make a profit by bringing it to a major auction house with a better description.

Rembrandt's "Ecce Homo" hundred years older than previously thought!

Duran, from Spain, sells on 22 December 2016 a "Lucas van Leyden" Christ before Pilatus (i.e. an Ecce Homo), estimated at 18,000 Euro.

Lucas van Leyden is a great Dutch engraver who has also left a limited number of paintings. An original painting by him like this should be worth 500,000 Euro probably, if not much much more (the estimate is what good followers or "circle of" works fetch: no real Leyden painting has come on the market in years it seems).

Lucas van Leyden made a few Ecce Homo's, like the Large Ecce Homo (image from the Met), which directly influenced Rembrandt (work from the Rijksmuseum shown below).

The work for sale here is a painted version of another Rembrandt depiction of the Ecce Homo scene: this version comes from the National Gallery.

Could it be that this one as well is based on a Lucas van Leyden painting, and much more closely still than the other one? Do we need to rewrite art history and severely diminish the genius of Rembrandt, who was often simply a copyist? Probably not.

The painting for sale has little resemblance to other Van Leyden works, and is much more in the dark style of the Dutch Golden Age, where colour takes precedence over line (unlike the work of Van Leyden).

So, can it be an unknown Rembrandt? Well, I did fail to spot the "Senses" sleeper that shook the auction world recently, but still I'm fairly certain that no, this isn't a sleeper Rembrandt. The work for sale is fairly well painted, but I think it is 18th century, and worth a few thousand Euro at the very most.