(16 May 2018) LEADIN:
A painting newly attributed to Dutch Golden Age master Rembrandt van Rijn went on display Wednesday in an Amsterdam museum.
The Hermitage Amsterdam museum says it is the first unknown Rembrandt to surface in 44 years.
STORYLINE:
This unsigned, undated 17th-century portrait of a young man resplendent in a black cape and white lace ruff, caught the eye of of Amsterdam art dealer Jan Six when an auction catalogue plopped onto his gallery's doormat in 2016.
The catalogue attributed the work to an unknown member of Rembrandt's circle, but immediately Six felt that that was incorrect. His gut was that this painting was by the master himself - Rembrandt.
"An auction house Christie's sent the catalogue as they usually do to my gallery, and I opened the envelope, flipped through the catalogue and my eye got stuck on this picture because of how it looks but also because they called it circle of Rembrandt van Rijn and if you know a little bit about the 17th century you can sort of see that this type of fashion relates to the early '30s. So at that time Rembrandt just came from Leiden and he didn't have a circle, so I thought what they written down doesn't make sense and the picture looks too good. It's that sort of blink of an eye feeling that I felt this is better than what they think," he explains.
Six jumped on a plane to London to look at the painting, compared it with another Rembrandt portrait hanging in the city's National Gallery and bought it for what now looks like a modest 140,000 pounds ($189,000).
Six knows a thing or two about Rembrandt - one of his wealthy ancestors was painted by the Master in the 17th century - so he knew what to look for in the painting.
In this case, a tiny part of the young man's ruff caught his eye as he studied the painting in detail.
"There's one fantastic flap of lace and there's one curved edge and it's so fantastic - it's such a depiction of space - that you really want to put your finger on it," Six says.
"And the ability to get there to that end result, in my view and in many other experts' views, only Rembrandt ever reached that level."
After buying the work, he brought it home and then spent months analysing it and consulting with a dozen experts who have now agreed with his view that it is a previously unknown work by Rembrandt.
"For me, it's about connoisseurship - an old-fashioned way of looking at pictures and really having an eye and having an ability to see greatness in paintings. But that's not enough these days, you also have to compare to technical elements. So we did every potential, possible test available," he says.
The painting is on show for a month at the Hermitage Amsterdam starting May 16, 2018.
The museum's director Cathelijne Broers is delighted with that honour.
"It's a very exciting day. We're thrilled to have this beautiful painting here because it's once in a lifetime actually that a new piece of art has been found and now we can share it here with the Dutch public. That feels good as a museum director because that's what you're doing all day. To share art with the public."
Six, who plans to sell the painting, will not speculate publicly on what it is now worth with the Rembrandt attribution.

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