Nice auction at Neumeister, including a Brueghel the Younger which is a Grimmer instead

Neumeister, from Germany, sells on 25 September 2019 a fine collection of Old Master paintings.

Lot 94 is an "Antwerp, Early 16th century" Man of Sorrows (or Christ and the Instruments of the Passion), estimated at 4,000 to 6,000 Euro. It is painted by an accomplished artist, even though it may be based on an engraving (though I haven't found one with this composition).

On the middle left, next to his shoulder, I think I have found a monogram, "PA". It is cleverly hidden in the decoration, but as these are the only letters anywhere, and they clearly aren't "PAX" or some such, I wonder if they may be a monogram for the artist? But it doesn't really look like Pieter Aertsen I think, and I doubt that Pieter Coecke van Aelst would use PA. Others may have a better idea (e.g. the way the flesh of the left arm is painted seems to be very artist-specific). It should easily sell at the estimate, and may go a lot higher if some people have an idea of the actual artist.

Lot 109, Saint Paul with the viper by "Dutch school, 17th century" (est. 2,500 to 3,000 Euro) is a copy after an engraving by Harmen Jansz Muller from ca. 1590, after a design by Dirck Barendsz, as found at the Rijksmuseum site. Considering that the charm of the painting is all derived from the composition of the engraving, and the actual artistic merits of the painting are very small, it might struggle to reach the estimate.

Lot 119 is the most interesting of these, a "Workshop of Pieter Brueghel the Younger" allegory of Spring, estimated at 25,000 to 30,000 Euro.

Other versions of this work are known, and in 2013 one was sold at Sotheby's for $2,285,000!

A full set of the four seasons was sold at Christie's in 2016 for £6,466,500.

But the description of that version brings the cat out of the bag: the one for sale here is most likely not from the workshop of Pieter Brueghel the Younger, but from the workshop of Abel Grimmer. The Brueghel versions all have some characteristics not found in the Grimmer ones, and vice versa.

 Ulster Museum

Private collection


In the Brueghel ones, you can see that they are planting flowers, there are two sheep close to the river, and there is a row of houses across the river.

The Grimmer ones, on the other hand, follow the original engraving after Pieter Brueghel the Elder much closer. This was made in 1570 by Pieter Van der Heyden (example from the Met Museum).

A signed 1607 copy (i.e. older than the Pieter Brueghel the Younger versions) is kept in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp (together with the remainder of the series). It is clearly a lot closer to the one for sale than the Brueghel ones: no flowers are planted, no loose sheep, but on the other hand you get a small boat on the water, the houses behind the river are replaced with some stand, the gate behind the workers (smack in the middle of the painting) is longer to the left, the large pigeon tower isn't red at the bottom but yellowish white, ...

A full set of the four seasons by Grimmer was sold at Lempertz in 2018 for 285,000 Euro. This one seems to be a bit further removed from the original, as some details become weird or are missing (the boat on the river, which will pass the stand in some festive manner, is replaced with a swan; the shovel in the front gets a strange angle; the pigeon tower becomes a generic tower...) suggesting that this may be the work of a follower of Grimmer and not directly a work by Grimmer; the work for sale seems closer to his original though.

As such, I would estimate it at 50,000 Euro.

UPDATE: The Man of Sorrows sold for a very nice 35,560€, the Saint Paul for 2858€, and the Grimmer for 120,650€, impressive!

"Follower of Brueghel" in 2018, "attributed to Jakob Grimmer" now, but still a copy after Hans Bol

Hargesheimer, from Germany, sells on 14 September 2019 an "attributed to Jakob Grimmer" "Parable of the Sower", estimated at 30,000 Euro.

The same work was for sale last year at Saarbrûcken, as a "follower of Brueghel", for 900 Euro. I then wrote a blog post about it, explaining that it is not the Parable of the Sower but the Parable of the Tares (the Sower is about indiscriminately sowing and includes no devil or sleeping men, the Tares is about "But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.", and the "enemy" is later explained to be the Devil).

More importantly, I showed that the work is a copy after an engraving by Hans Bol from 1574. It seems unlikely that Jakob Grimmer would have copied this engraving, and the work is not good enough to be by him either (e.g. the cloudscapes by Grimmer are one of the best parts of his work in many cases, but here the sky is rather boring). While Grimmer sometimes has rather simplistic work, they still show a lot more skill than this copy. The estimate here seems way too high.

This isn't the only seriously overestimated work in this auction though.

This "Workshop or School of Rubens" Magdalene was already overpriced at Hampel in 2017 (15,000 Euro, no sale), and is still overpriced here at 12,000 Euro. It looks good on their website at first glance (with the rather small default image Hargesheimer provides), but when seen more closely, it becomes obvious that it is a poor later copy, as indicated by the Lartsite as well (scroll down to number 11). Worth 3,000 to 5,000 Euro perhaps?

They also have a "Frans Hals (workshop?)" boy with a flute, estimated at 5,000 Euro. It is a very poor copy after Hals (or at least after a follower of Hals, much better example thanks to the RKD). Worth 500 Euro instead? The same applies to another similar "Hals" estimated at 4,000 Euro.

I also seriously doubt that Rembrandt made this rather poor drawing in 1636 for his 1654 etching of "Jesus between his parents returning from the Temple" (and not a "flight into Egypt"), but if it was by Rembrandt, 3,500 Euro would be cheap.

I haven't looked in detail at all the works yet: there are many paintings with a very affordable estimate, and it may well be that there are some bargains among these. But there were very few works among the more expensive ones which seemed to be worth their estimate.

"Flemish School follower of Ryckaert" seems closer to Jacob Grimmer

Ader, from France, sells on 24 June 2016 a "Flemish School, follower of Marten Ryckaert" "The sower", estimated at 2,000 to 3,000 Euro.

It is another work depicting the Parable of the Pares, which I discussed  in a few posts like this one from March 2015. It even shows the same two-handed sowing, which is probably symbolic and differs from the standard one-handed technique usually seen. The clothing of the Devil also is very similar (the cap, and the long coat ending in a tail)

The RKD lists a very similar work by Jacob Grimmer, but it is about 100 years older than the date given by Ader.

They also list one version of the same story by Marten Ryckaert, but this is a lot less similar to the work for sale than the Grimmer when looking at the composition. Details like the way the tree is painted are more Ryckaert-like though.

In general, the work seems to old to be by a follower of Ryckaert, and looks to me more like a late 16th century work. It should easily fetch the estimate.