Art Market Monitor

Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis

  • AMMpro
  • AMM Fantasy Collecting Game
  • Podcast
  • Contact Us

At Least Three Connoisseurs Think This $800 Lot That Sold for $870,000 Might Be a Rembrandt

September 23, 2015 by Marion Maneker

Rem sleeper
Detail from Triple Portrait with Lady Fainting

Did someone just find a Rembrandt at a New Jersey auction house? At least three persons see something of Rembrandt in this small work (the buyer, the underbidder and Bendor Grosvenor.)

A reader sent him a screenshot from an auction at Nye & Co. in Bloomfield, NJ where a work estimated at $500-800 sold for $870,000. But the really wild thing about it is that Grosvenor—who has more than his share of impressive Old Master finds—is on the side of the buyer:

Still, $870,000 (or close to $1m with premium) is cheap for an early Rembrandt. It’s a little expensive for an early Dou.  Judging by the head of the figure in a red hat, I’d say the former is a better bet. If you bought it, good spot – and good luck!

Update: The Art Newspaper adds a few more details to the story:

The painting had been noticed by some in the trade and is suspected to be a depiction of “Smell” by a young Rembrandt from his series on the Five Senses. Dating from around 1625, the pictures are considered to be the very first paintings made by the Old Master, possibly done while still a student in the studio of the Dutch painter Pieter Lastman. Three others from the series are known: The Operation, The Sense of Touch and Three Singers, the Sense of Hearing are owned by the New York collector Tom Kaplan of the Leiden Gallery, New York, while The Spectacle Seller, The Sense of Sight is in the Museum de Lakenhal in Leiden.

Has a long-lost painting by a teenaged Rembrandt been discovered in New Jersey? (The Art Newspaper)

Sleeper Alert! – Art History News – by Bendor Grosvenor

More from Art Market Monitor

  • Sotheby’s Announces $12m Picasso to Lead Joan Oestreich Kend CollectionSotheby’s Announces $12m Picasso to Lead Joan Oestreich Kend Collection
  • Lenore Schorr Makes the Basquiat-Murillo Link Over ChocolateLenore Schorr Makes the Basquiat-Murillo Link Over Chocolate
  • Set of Matisse Backs to Be Broken Up Without $200m BuyerSet of Matisse Backs to Be Broken Up Without $200m Buyer
  • Moonlighting for Lauder Is a Full-Time JobMoonlighting for Lauder Is a Full-Time Job
  • Christie’s HK Jewelry = HK$644m ($82.7m)Christie’s HK Jewelry = HK$644m ($82.7m)
  • Sotheby’s Mod & Postwar British = £9.4m ($11.8)Sotheby’s Mod & Postwar British = £9.4m ($11.8)

Filed Under: General

About Marion Maneker

Want to get Art Market Monitor‘s posts sent to you in our email? Sign up below by clicking on the Subscribe button.

Top Posts

  • After Pandemic’s Rapid Change, Sotheby’s Has 8 Predictions for 2021
  • Keith Haring’s 1989 Retrospect Comes to Sotheby’s London Prints Sale
  • Tony Podesta's Secret Art Buying
  • A Season of Improvisation: Fall 2020 New York Modern and Contemporary Art Auction Analysis
  • Four of Picasso's Women Valued at $28m Come to Christie's from Rose-Walters Collection
  • Norman Rockwell's Not Gay. But Is He a Great Artist?
  • Phillips Includes $2.5m Norman Rockwell Painting in November Evening Sale
  • Roy Lichtenstein’s Top Ten Auction Prices
  • Re-discovered John Constable Painting at Sotheby's in December
  • Rauschenberg’s Buffalo II Leads Mayer Collection at Christie’s
  • About Us/ Contact
  • Podcast
  • AMMpro
  • Newsletter
  • FAQ

twitterfacebooksoundcloud
Privacy Policy
Terms & Conditions
California Privacy Rights
Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Advertise on Art Market Monitor