Roger, I commented on the disparity in the engraving because the scroll work looked coarse to me. Kornbrath's technique was so fluid that I couldn't see it in the auction images.
Even his deep relief work always has carefully produced and evenly spaced cross hatching. His hounds always look the same as well.
My art teacher chided me that every line in cross hatching is important, it's not cross scribbling ( which is what you get when shading in haste).
So, I don't consider any of that condemnation. I consider it to be reason to investigate further. I don't spend 200 large without confirming investigation.
If the provenance is irrefutable, the set is what it is, and the market will set a value.
My gut at this time is that there's some "stretch" in the level of contribution involving the two artist's. Maybe a screw head here, and a grip cap there, but the provenance needs to really step up to get me to come off it. This one's going to need 1st hand documentation.
