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Always nice to see the hideous impact of AI webcrawlers independently. My blog, hardly posted to since 2020, slowly gets much more views from mid-2023 on, to reach a massive peak of 300,000 views in 1 month (June 2026). Multiply this by all blogs, and you get why many sites hate this.

Sale of the former Augusteum, the ducal museum in Oldenburg. Frederik Müller, Amsterdam, 1924, lot 115: Bonifacio de Pitati (or Veronese), "Holy Family with Fathers of the Church", panel, 79*119cm. Sold at Bertolami in 2018 for 34,000 Euro. bertolamifineart.bidinside.com/en/lot/31529...

4th of the 29 ephemera for the inauguration of Govaart Geeraard van Eersel as bishop of Ghent in 1772. Triple chronogram in Latin, about 59*39 cm. One of the less well-preserved ones. Not the largest one though!

The label (minus the top line in the shadow). Transcription and translation are given in the Sotheby's catalogue, no need to repeat it here. Spoiler: it's a moralising verse about life and death. As always...

Daily photo from my visit to the Phoebus Foundation flower art exhibition at the Kadriorg Museum in Tallinn: Jan Boeckhorst, "The Fat Ox", sold at Sotheby's in 2018 for £87,500. 1/2 www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/...

Closeup of one of these.

Back to the illustrated items in the sale of the former Augusteum, the ducal museum in Oldenburg. Frederik Müller, Amsterdam, 1924, lot 113: Pupil of Perugino, "Saint Sebastian", canvass, 168*109cm. Giuliano Bugiardini, now in the New Orleans Museum of Art. kress.nga.gov/Detail/objec...

...or Old Master paintings of course. Jacob Jordaens, "The Bagpipe Player", in the Rubenshuis Antwerp. Picture from Wikimedia Commons.

"Thoroughly restored" is the professional term :-) Hard to tell from a website photo for me, it is very well preserved otherwise.

Sold for £16,510, seller probably is relieved by this still substantial but much smaller loss.

Two of the emblemata. 2/2

Third of the 29 ephemera for the inauguration of Govaart Geeraard van Eersel as bishop if Ghent in 1772. 8-page Latin chronogram plus emblemata, with the exact date inserted in handwriting. 1/2

*200 ka or 200,000 a, not 200,000 ka of course...

Daily photo from my visit to the Phoebus Foundation flower art exhibition at the Kadriorg Museum in Tallinn: Pieter Snyers, "Still life with thistle and nest". Sold by Lempertz in 2013 for 29280€, and again in 2021 for 42500€. www.lempertz.com/en/catalogue... www.lempertz.com/en/catalogue...

Towards the light

Final touristy photo of my England holiday are these stairs in the Courtauld. From Monday on I´ll normally resume my regular posting schedule from where I stopped in June.

I'm not convinced by the 480,000€ Fragonard, the 60K P Bruegel the Younger looks 19th century, this 28K Van Cleve is out of focus (but the frame isn't). Not bidding on this auction... www.interencheres.com/art-decorati... www.interencheres.com/art-decorati... www.interencheres.com/art-decorati...

Totally confused by the Dreyful sale of 28 July. Some nice things, but extremely elevated prices. 50,000 Euro for a pair of mediocre paintings like this one? 1/2 www.interencheres.com/art-decorati...

London, Cutty Sark.

My final image from the John Soane Museum: a landscape, believed by Soane to be by Jacob van Ruysdael but now reattributed to Cornelis Gerritsz Dekker.