OLD MASTER GALLERY
European Paintings , Drawings and Sculptures
 1500's  to Present
 TRUE MASTERPIECES  IN DISGUISE
OLD MASTER WEEK NEW YORK
 2012
CLASSIFIED AS FOLLOWER OF RUBEN'S  LOT #407 JAN 27th AT SOTHEBYS, THE RAPE OF EUROPA MEASURING 77" X 51" IS STUNNING IN EVERY REGARD AND MAY BE THE SLEEPER OF THE ENTIRE AUCTION. COULD THIS HAVE BEEN THE REINVENTED "RAPE OF EUROPA" BY VAN DYCK OR IS THERE ANOTHER MEANING TO THIS PAINTING?

RUBEN'S WIFE IS DEPICTED IN THE UPPER LEFT CORNER OF THE COMPOSITION WHOMEVER WORKED WITHIN THE STUDIO HAD RUBEN'S PERMISSION TO INCLUDE HIS WIFE HELENA NOT UNLESS RUBENS HAD DIED ALREADY.

 It is interesting to note that Rubens married Helena Fourment on December 6, 1630, when he was fifty-three and she was sixteen. Helena became the model and the inspiration for many paintings by Rubens dating from the 1630s, particularly those dealing with themes of ideal beauty or love. There is not a subject in art which is more beautiful displaying Ideal Beauty than THE RAPE OF EUROPA and THE GARDEN OF LOVE .

IT IS IMPORTANT IN TO NOTE THE FOLLOWING ABOUT THE PAINTING;

1) Helen appears 4 times in the composition, one looking directly at the viewer with a Guilty look two, she is crouched down with her face and hand upwards observing Europa, three, also as  an older Helen holding onto Europa and lastly Helen as Europa herself with changed color of hair.

2)RUBENS is depicted also as the Centaur in the front of the composition.

3) VAN DYCK is depicited as the centaur with long horns right in front of Helen in the top corner.

4) Rubens was protective about his much younger wife Helen and was apprehensive about her attraction to the good looking Van Dyck . 

WAS SOMETHING GOING ON IN THE RUBEN'S STUDIO THAT HAD TO BE TOLD?
 
WHOMEVER PAINTED IT MAY HAVE WITNESSED SOMETHING BETWEEN RUBEN'S WIFE
HELEN AND VAN DYCK BUT KEPT IT TO THEMSELVES UNTIL RUBEN'S DIED AND TOO CLEAR THEIR CONSCIENCE , PAINTED THIS  SUBJECT. QUITE EXTRAORDINARY!!!
SOTHEBYS OLD MASTER PAINTING JANUARY 26TH 2012 
AN ALLEGORY OF FIDELITY LOT #106
IS TRULY A MASTERPIECE AND ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PAINTINGS TO COME TO LIGHT BY CRISPIN VAN DEN BROECK- THIS IS A SLEEPER- AT A LOW ESTIMATE OF $40K-60K IT SHOULD ENTICE THE SEASONED COLLECTOR AND THE ASTUTE CONNOISSEUR . DEPICTING THE OLYMPIC GODS , APOLLO AND HIS CHARIOT, ZEUS AND HIS DAUGHTERS THE THREE GRACES, MERCURY, ORPHEUS AND ADONIS WITH CUPID BRANDISHING HIS HELMET AND FINALLY FIDELITY WITH THE DOG ON HER LAP PROTECTING HER AND THE CHAINS AROUND HER WASTE BEING HELD BY VENUS. THERE IS A LUXURIOUS SPANISH VILLA IN THE MIDDLE OFTEN THE SPANISH VICEROYS WOULD COMMISSION A PAINTING TO ADORN THESE VILLAS. IT IS MONUMENTAL MEASURING AN IMPRESSIVE 4' X 7' ON CRADLED PANEL IN A BEAUTIFUL FLEMISH RIPPLE FRAME.

Crispin van den Broeck (1523–c. 1591) was a Flemish painter. He was born in Mechelen. He came from a family of artists, was probably trained by his father, and was the brother of Willem van den Broeck andHendrick van den Broeck. He worked as a painter, draftsman and engraver. He was enlisted as a master in the Guild of St. Luke of Antwerp in 1555–6, where he became a citizen in 1559.

In Antwerp he was a collaborator of Frans Floris with whom he remained until the master’s death in 1570. According to Karel van Mander, Crispin van den Broeck and Frans Pourbus the elder completed an altarpiece for the Grand-Prior of Spain left incomplete at the time of Floris’s death. Van Mander also claimed that Crispin van den Broek was 'a good inventor... clever at large nudes and just as good an architect'. Crispin van den Broek died in Antwerp sometime between 1589 and 6 February 1591.
LOT #406 DAVID AND GOLIATH ATTRIBUTED TO FRANCESCO SIMONINNI IS AT THE 
SOTHEBYS' JANUARY 27TH 2012
IT IS BRILLIANTLY EXECUTED WITH OVER A HUNDRED FIGURES DEPICTED. THERE IS  GREAT USAGE OF LIGHT BEWEEN THE CLASSICAL FIGURES IN THE FOREGROUND  AND THE BATTLEMEN  ON THEIR HORSES RACING UP OVER THE BRIDGE IN THE BACKGROUND. THERE ALSO EXISTS TWO DISTINCT STYLES OF PAINTING BOTH HIGH REALISM IN THE FRONT AND STRONG IMPRESSIONISTIC FIGURES IN THE BACKGROUND ADDING TO SIMONINI 'S VENETIAN INFLUENCE AND STRONG PAINTERLY SKILLS. THIS IS OUR UNVEILED MASTERPIECE OF THE AUCTION.
Italian painter. His date of birth is recorded in the register of the baptistery at Parma (no. 246), so correcting that (1689) given in all the earliest sources. He trained under Brescianino and Pier Ilario Spolverini (1657-1734) in his home town and became a successful painter of battle scenes. It is probable that the young painter soon moved to Florence, where he studied the paintings of Jacques Courtois and copied 24 of his battle scenes. Later it is said that Simonini visited Rome. He certainly worked in Bologna, where he was documented as the painter of the most eminent Cardinal Ruffo, Papal ambassador in Bologna , a post the Cardinal held from August 1721 to August 1727.
  After a short stay in Florence, he settled in Venice, where he had the best of the English aristocracy among his clients. He was also the celebrated Marshal Schulenberg s official painter, and followed him on his military campaigns. Simonini participated in a number of Von der Schulenberg s military campaigns, thus explaining the large number of cavalry scenes that are attributed to him. His distinctive style, with its rapid brushwork and vivid use of colour, was formed under the influence of his Venetian contemporaries and, in particular, of the view-painter Marco Ricci.