Painting by 'Rubens student' is by master himself, Swedish experts claim

0 Comments | AFP, December, 2006

STOCKHOLM (AFP) — Bids for a painting advertised by a Swedish auction house as the work of a student of 17th-century Dutch Baroque master Rubens went through the roof as experts identified it as the master's own work, auctioneers said. Bidding for the piece, entitled "Allegorical Scene - with Diana the goddess of hunting," started at 15,000 kronor (2,200 dollars, 1,650 euros) but went up to 16.6 million kronor (2.43 million dollars, 1.83 million euros) as excited bidders were convinced that the auctioneers had made a major blunder.

"It had been catalogued as a piece in the manner of Rubens, which is not his own hand but from his school," Charlotte Widenfelt, curator of the Uppsala auction house some 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Stockholm, told AFP. "At the auction (on...