Expectations were higher with an estimate of PLN 18-24 million (EUR 3.8-5.1 million), but when the gavel fell at PLN 12 million (EUR 2.5 million), it was still a record: DESA Unicum in Warsaw has sold the most expensive work of art ever sold at an auction in Poland with a “Portrait of a Lady” created in 1620/25 in Antwerp and attributed to Peter Paul Rubens and workshop.
By way of comparison, in 2020, another Rubens-attributed Portrait of a Lady sold at Sotheby's in London at the lower estimate for £2.5 million (2.8 million euros), and Christie's sold a Portrait of a Young Lady Holding a Necklace below the estimate for 3.4 million pounds (3.75 million euros).
The oil painting on canvas now sold in Warsaw comes from a non-European private collection.
In the catalog raisonné "Corpus Rubenianum" it is listed as a copy of a first version on wood that is in the Mauritshuis in The Hague.
Nils Büttner, chairman of the Centrum Rubenianum, rejects the attribution of the canvas to Rubens and workshop;
it was either created in the workshop without the participation of the master or even in its environment.
The appraiser at the auction house, Katarzyna Pisarek, sees things differently.
The unnamed buyer is likely to agree with their assessment.