Sonja Anderson at Smithsonian Magazine:
Three years ago, Belgian art dealer Klaas Muller paid about $115,000 for an undated, unsigned painting of an elderly man. Offered online by a “lesser-known auction house in northern Europe,” the piece was billed as a study by an unknown master of the “Flemish school,” Muller tells the Guardian’s Philip Oltermann.
However, the oil-on-paper piece may be the work of Peter Paul Rubens, the renowned Flemish painter of the 17th century. When Muller first glimpsed the warm-toned painting—depicting a man gazing downward past his long, wavy beard—he recognized something in it.
“I wasn’t sure it was a Rubens. I just knew it was very Rubens-esque, so it was still a gamble,” Muller tells the Guardian. “I have a library of books about [Rubens] at home and look at them most evenings. … It’s a bit of an addiction.”
Muller also thought the man in the painting looked familiar. He guessed it was St. Peter the Apostle or the Roman god Neptune, he tells the Belgian newspaper De Standaard’s Geert Sels. Muller began combing his reference books.
More here.
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