Within a private British collection, a handful of previously unseen and exceedingly rare Rembrandt portraits have been unearthed. These intimate portrayals, showcasing the Dutch artist’s relatives, are anticipated to fetch between £5 million and £8 million ($6.25 million-$10 million) at an upcoming auction.
Dated and signed from 1635, the paintings feature an elderly couple, Rembrandt’s in-laws, Jan Willemsz van der Pluym and his wife Jaapgen Carels. These relatively diminutive artworks, measuring just under 8 inches in height, depict the affluent couple from a prominent family in Leiden, Netherlands.
Their son, Dominicus van der Pluym, was married to Rembrandt’s cousin, Cornelia van Suytbroec. Their sole child, Karel van der Pluym, likely received tutelage from Rembrandt and named the artist’s sole surviving heir, Titus, in his will.
In the same year the portraits were created, 1635, the subjects acquired a garden adjacent to one owned by Rembrandt’s mother in Leiden.
Christie’s auction house, overseeing the sale, emphasized in a press release the “extraordinary, nearly uninterrupted lineage” of these portraits. They remained within the models’ family until 1760, following the passing of Marten ten Hove, their great-grandson. The artworks then journeyed to Warsaw, becoming part of Count Vincent Potocki’s private collection, briefly passing through the Baron d’Ivry collection in Paris in 1820, and then to James Murray, the 1st Baron Glenlyon.
In 1824, Murray opted to auction the artworks at Christie’s, where they were described as “Rembrandt – very spirited and finely coloured.” After this sale, the paintings remained within the same British family’s private collection, eluding the notice of art experts. The current owners have chosen to remain anonymous.
During a telephone conversation with CNN, Henry Pettifer from Christie’s revealed that this discovery occurred several years ago during a routine assessment of the household contents. He explained that the paintings immediately piqued significant interest, surprising the owners, who had no prior expectations regarding the artworks.
Following the initial discovery, Pettifer and his team conducted extensive research at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, where the portraits underwent scientific scrutiny. Pettifer was astonished that these paintings were entirely unknown, never having been referenced in any Rembrandt literature from the 19th or 20th centuries.
It was only through diligent research at the Rijksmuseum that the identities of the portrait subjects were confirmed. Pettifer described the paintings as “small, very intimate, very spontaneous,” suggesting a close rapport with the artist.
According to Pettifer, these are the smallest known portraits painted by Rembrandt. They will be exhibited in New York and Amsterdam next month before returning to London for a pre-sale exhibition, with the auction scheduled for July 6th.