A Purported Rembrandt Found In an Attic Just Sold for $1.4 Million

Estate sales usually involve families letting go of various household items like dinnerware and furniture. But every so often, a rare treasure is excavated. Case in point: the recent sale of a painting believed to be by Rembrandt forgotten in an attic for decades that fetched a winning bid of $1.4 million.

According to the Associated Press, the painting, dubbed Portrait of a Girl, had been stored unceremoniously in the attic of a home in Camden, Maine. Taking stock of the home’s contents for an estate sale, family members called in Kaja Veilleux of Thomaston Place Auction Galleries to see if any of the items were deserving of a closer look. Veilleux was astonished to find the 17th century painting by Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn tucked away in storage among several other artworks.

“On house calls, we often go in blind, not knowing what we’ll find,” Veilleux said in a statement. “The home was filled with wonderful pieces but it was in the attic, among stacks of art, that we found this remarkable portrait.”

Portrait of a Girl depicts a teenager in a ruffled collar and white cap staring serenely into the void on a hand-carved frame. It’s one of 300 or so paintings on canvas the artist is thought to have produced in his lifetime.

It’s believed the art was in the family—who has not been identified in the press—since at least the 1920s; a sticker on the back of the frame notes it was loaned out to the Philadelphia Museum of Art at one point in the 1970s. But how it first came into their possession is unclear.

Veilleux brought the painting to auction in late August, resulting in a feverish bidding war despite a lack of clear provenance. Ultimately, a collector in Europe claimed it with a bid of $1.4 million. While that may sound expensive, it could wind up being a relative bargain. Once the painting is authenticated as a genuine Rembrandt, it could see its value rise to $15 million.

That authentication, however, can be a tricky business. According to CNN, there’s no sole authority that can conclusively state whether a work came from Rembrandt or not. Often, paintings will garner legitimacy through the consensus opinion of experts or the endorsement of a major auction house like Sotheby’s. In 2021, the auctioneer concluded a Rembrandt titled The Adoration of the Kings was the genuine article. It sold for nearly $13.8 million.

“The great thing, really, would be to go to Vienna with this painting, hold it up [to similar works], have a discussion with a few experts,” Rembrandt scholar Gary Schwartz told CNN. “It [was painted] on panel, so you can date the panel, and very often you find that the wood is from the same slabs that have been used by other paintings from the Rembrandt workshop.”

While this may incentivize you to check your own attic, Rembrandts are an exceedingly rare find. Portrait of a Girl is the first by the artist to come into Veilleux’s hands in a 50-year career.

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