A flow of discoveries spices auctions, large and small. In January 1997 in New York, a view of the town of Frederik in the Brazilian state of Paraibo, signed by Frans Post and dated 1638, turned up out of nowhere at Sotheby's. On the back of the canvas, a French royal inventory number identifies this as once part of a group of at least 18 views owned by King Louis XIV of France. Of these, only six others have been traced, of which four are now in the Louvre. No one should lose heart on hearing this.
Discoveries continue to be made all the time.
This year at the European Fine Art Fair held in Maastricht, Robert Noortman of Maastricht and London displayed another previously unrecorded Post. This is one of the Brazilian views that the painter did in Haarlem, after returning from America, the memory of which continued to haunt him to the end of his life. Not every discovery costs millions. Noortman was showing one of the most ravishing still lifes by the German painter Ottmar Elliger. Two roses with a surreal, very daintily sculptural quality to their petals, are laid across a tablet supported by the head of a smiling angel.