Two portraits painted by Rembrandt, hidden from view in a private collection for two hundred years, were sold at auction on Thursday July 6 in London. Christie’s was hoping for between 5 and 8 million pounds sterling (5.8 to 9.3 million euros) for these two oval portraits 20 centimeters high by 16.5 centimeters wide, which eventually changed hands for 11.235 million pounds (13.122 million euros).
These oil paintings by the 17th-century Dutch master had remained in the same family until an expert at the prestigious auction house spotted them during a routine appraisal.
“I [discovered] these paintings for the first time a few years ago during a routine appraisal and was stopped dead in my tracks,” said Henry Pettifer, Head of Old Master Paintings at Christie’s. . “I was really amazed to discover that these paintings had never really been researched and had never been discussed in the Rembrandt literature,” he told Agence France-Presse. , while the portraits were recently exhibited in Amsterdam.
Friends of Rembrandt’s family
The portraits, believed to date from 1635, depict a plumber called Jan Willemsz van der Pluym and his wife Jaapgen Carels. The couple, painted in an intimate style unusual for the artist, were among Rembrandt’s family friends and hailed from his hometown of Leiden in the western Netherlands.
An ancestor of the current owners had purchased the paintings, already at an auction at Christie’s, in 1824, where they were listed as Rembrandt. Since then, they had remained in the same private collection. “They sat quietly, loved by the owner’s family for two centuries,” Mr. Pettifer said.
After the two paintings were spotted, work began to verify that they were authentic Rembrandts. Christie’s has called on art experts, including the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, which has one of the largest Rembrandt collections in the world. The museum’s scientific team examined the works for almost two years before concluding that they were indeed by the artist.
