Veritas, from Spain, sells on 22 May 2018 a "Flemish School, 17th century" Magdalene, estimated at 1500 to 2,000 Euro.
While the Mgadalene has clearly suffered through the ages and gives the impression of being the work of a third-rate painter, the overall composition and the execution of the many putti show more skill and make the work more interesting. Whether the same acceptable level of quality is hidden beneath dirt and overpaint for the Magdalene as well, or whether this is all that remains and the details have been rubbed away is unclear, but I seriously doubt that she originally had such a non-descript face or such a curved arm.
The overall atmosphere, and the chubby putti with their somewhat strange positions (e.g. the outstretched legs of some of them) strongly remind me of the work of Cornelis van Poelenburgh. While he has a few much better, polished works, many of his works are quite similar in execution to this one.
Van Poelenburgh put his putti or little angels in many, many paintings, even where they seem rather out of place, like in the above expulsion from Paradise.
One of his best works is probably this Venus and Cupid, clearly superior to the work for sale here.
The estimate for this work may be a bit low, but looking at older auction results for works attributed to van Poelenburgh, the prices are all over the place. Comparable works sell for 5,000 Euro, but better ones remain unsold with a 2,000 Euro estimate... You can't go much wrong at the lower estimate in any case.
UPDATE: as a reader correctly reported, Veritas is from Portugal, not from Spain.
