Opinions of art historians are sometimes daily quotes. Exactly two years ago, Christie’s auctioned a biblical scene in Amsterdam, The Adoration of the Kings. A dirty, monochrome brown painting, less than an A4 in size, with serious condition problems. Because of the clearly Rembrandtish features, the auction house consulted various Rembrandt experts for a year and a half. Their verdict: no Rembrandt but “Rembrandt’s environment”. Christie’s offered the panel at the time with a target price of 10,000 to 15,000 euros.
Sotheby’s announced on Thursday afternoon that it will offer the same painting at a prestigious evening auction in London in December as a rediscovered Rembrandt. The target price will soon be a factor of a thousand higher than in Amsterdam: 10 to 15 million pounds, 11.5 to 17.3 million euros. Christie’s major competitor reports that a third party guarantees the sale. If no one bids, the guarantor buys the painting for an agreed amount, probably close to the low target price.
The painting attracted enormous attention in Amsterdam two years ago because there was a fight over it. An unknown buyer had 862,000 euros for it. Sander Bijl, from Kunsthandel Bijl-Van Urk in Alkmaar, then submitted the second highest bid. He was willing to go that far because in his eyes it was a painting with “a lot of potential.” According to him, some background figures and the light on the faces pointed to an early Rembrandt from his Leiden years. “Late 1627, early 1628,” he said.
Also read: Estimated at around 10,000, sold for 860,000 euros: is this a Rembrandt?
Eighteen months of research
He was quite alone in that opinion. The Rembrandt experts and other dealers consulted by Christie’s saw nothing in the painting. The well-known Dutch dealer in old masters Bob Haboldt spoke of “an incomprehensibly high yield.” He had looked closely at the panel on the viewing days and judged that “it really had nothing to do with Rembrandt.”
Sotheby’s was approached by the party that bought the painting in Amsterdam two years ago, says an employee of the auction house in The Art Newspaper. After a year and a half of research, according to the auction house, several Rembrandt experts are convinced that it is an unknown Rembrandt. Volker Manuth, professor of (Early) Modern Art at Radboud University and co-author of a catalog raisonné of Rembrandt, is mentioned by name. The catalog text with the arguments for the attribution is not yet available.
Jeroen Giltaij, former curator of Museum Boijmans and author of the The Great Rembrandt book, went to the viewing days at Christie’s two years ago to view the painting. “The longer I looked at it, the worse I thought it was. The hands, faces, the composition, they are much too clumsy, even for the young Rembrandt.”
Discussions about the attribution to Rembrandt are timeless, says Giltaij. “He has worked in so many different styles.”