Identified $15,000 Rembrandt Painting Sells for Nearly $14 Million

Rembrandt's Adoration of the Kings has been virtually unknown since the 1950s. It was acquired by Amsterdam collector JCH Heldring in 1955. His widow sold it to a German family in 1985 until it was sold by Christie's in Amsterdam two years ago.

Adoration of the Kings sells for $13.8 million

At the time, Christie's auction house believed the painting was done by a student or an artist close to the famous artist, and estimated its value at around $10,000 to $15,000.

The 24.5 x 18.5 cm monochrome painting was bought by an anonymous buyer for nearly $910,000 at Christie's auction - 60 times its estimated value. After the anonymous buyer handed it over to Sotheby's, the auction house embarked on an 18-month research project to determine the painting's true value.

X-ray and infrared testing, as well as extensive discussions with leading Rembrandt scholars, led Sotheby's to conclude that the painting was "a work signed by Rembrandt." Prior to the sale, the auction house had estimated the work at $12.6 million to $18.8 million.

Sotheby's believes the painting was painted very early in Rembrandt's career, around 1628, when he was 21 or 22 years old and living in Leiden, Netherlands.

Infrared examination of the Adoration of the Kings

Today, most of Rembrandt's works hang in museums around the world and nearly all of his works sold at auction in the past three decades "have been portraits".

Sotheby's believes that the long-forgotten painting is a testament to Rembrandt's style in Leiden, both on the visible paint surface and in the scientifically discovered underlying layers. This monochrome work, along with the other colour paintings, constitutes an astonishing achievement and a testament to the artist's ambition and genius.

Rembrandt's artistic personality developed so rapidly in the period before he moved from Leiden to Amsterdam in 1631 that some works are undated.

Adoration of the Kings shows Rembrandt as a painter of religious subjects until his portraits began to become influential after 1635.

Given the dwindling number of Rembrandt paintings in private hands, most of which are portraits and very few of which deal with religious history, the Adoration of the Kings is an extremely rare work.

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