The Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn died in Amsterdam in October 1669. That was 355 years ago. But the art world is full of surprises. I constantly say there’s always something new to discover. Now, we have a reminder that in Rembrandt’s case that’s quite literally true. Two small portraits that have been in the private collection of a British family for 200 years were just discovered to be from the brush of the old Dutch Master.
The two paintings are small—only about 8 inches high each—and were painted in 1635. They depict a Dutch couple named Jan Willemsz van der Pluym and his wife Jaapgen Carels. How’s that for immortality? Ancestors of the current owners bought them in 1824.
What might be a little more surprising is that no Rembrandt scholars apparently knew these paintings even existed. Henry Pettifer, the international deputy chair of Old Master paintings at Christie’s auction house, said what was amazing to him was “that the pictures had never been studied before. They were completely absent from the Rembrandt literature.” The paintings will be up for sale at Christi’s in London on July 6. I don’t know if the family particularly needs the money or not, but the estimated value for the pair is between of $6 - $10 million.
Something a little similar recently happened in Philadelphia, although it had nothing to do with Rembrandt. It didn’t even involve paintings. But some long unnoticed art turned out to have an interesting pedigree. A couple of years ago a church there called the Emmanuel Christian Center bought an old church building from the Hickman Temple African Methodist Episcopal Church, its owner since 1972. The once grand and inspiring building was built in 1901, but over the recent decades deteriorated significantly. The new owners wanted to remodel and brighten up the sanctuary, so an architectural salvage company was contracted to haul off over a dozen stained-glass windows and various other furnishings. The church sold the whole lot, including two round rose windows, for $6,000.
Turns out those rose windows were created by the Tiffany glassworks company. “To find another Tiffany rose, let alone two — it’s almost unheard of,” said Tim Andreadis, of the Philadelphia auction house that then got involved. Last month they sold for $100,000 each. The salvage company is donating a portion of the $200,000 sale to the church to help with its renovations.
“A lot of these treasures are hidden in plain sight. All around us," Andreadis told a Philly TV station. I should say so.