Last known pair of Rembrandt portraits fetches $14 million at auction
Rembrandt
The very last known pair of Rembrandt protraits in private collection were auctioned for more than GBP 11 million (USD 14 million) at Christie's in London on Thursday (July 6). The auction took place nearly 200 years after the portraits first went under hammer at the auction house.
The paintings are thought to date from 1635. It was expected that they would fetch a price between GBP 5 million and GBP 8 million. The paintings were part of Christie's 'Old Masters" sale.
However, the final price was GBP 11,235,000, said Chirstie's in a statement.
The paintings, 20 centimetre high (eight-inch) are oval portraits depicting an elderly plumber named Jan Willemsz van der Pluym and his wife Jaapgen Carels.
The couple has been painted in an unusal intimate style for Rembrandt. The couple was friends of the artist's family and hailed from Leiden in the Netherlands. Leiden is Rembrandt's hometown.
Henry Pettifer, international deputy chairman of Old Master Paintings at Christie's, told AFP in Amsterdam last month that he was "stopped in his tracks" when he first saw the portraits.
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"I was really staggered to discover that the pictures had never really been researched and never been addressed in any of the literature on Rembrandt over the course of 200 years."
The paintings were bought by ancestors of the current owners at an auction at Christie's 1824. During that auction, the paintings were listed as Rembrandts. The paintings have remained in the same collection ever since.
"They've been sitting quietly and enjoyed by the owner's family over the course of two centuries... rather casually enjoying them very much," said Pettifer.
After spotting them, "forensic" work began on verifying that they were genuine Rembrandts, including scientific analysis by art experts from Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum.
The paintings are the smallest known portraits by the 17th century Dutch master, who was better known for much larger works commissioned by wealthy families.
(With inputs from agencies)
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