A painting that was last valued to be worth around $15,000 is up for auction this winter, only with a few more zeros added to the price tag now that experts have confirmed it's a work of the Dutch master Rembrandt. Smithsonian Magazine has the scoop on The Adoration of the Kings, a 1628 oil painting with a shifting origin story. The first records of the work date back to 1714, and after disappearing for a bit after the 1800s, it was acquired by a collector in the 1950s. Art historians declared it an early work of Rembrandt at the time, but later in the '80s, experts attributed it to one of his contemporaries.
When the painting was last sold in 2021, it was valued at about $15,000, but ended up selling for nearly $1 million because people still suspected it was a Rembrandt. Those suspicions will pay off well, because soon after, experts deemed them to be true. The price tag for The Adoration of the Kings, which depicts baby Jesus receiving gifts from the wise men, is expected to run upwards of $18 million. "Very few narrative paintings by Rembrandt remain in private hands, making this an opportunity for a private collector or an institution that is as rare as it is exciting," George Gordon, co-chairman of old master paintings at Sotheby's, told Tatler.
Gordon led the 18-month investigation into the painting's origins, which included infrared and X-ray imaging. The research found that it was conceived during an early, critical period in Rembrandt's career, when he lived in the Dutch city of Leiden in his 20s. Gordon called the work "ambitious," at a time when Rembrandt was "quickly developing as an artist," per CNN. They also learned that the work was painted over several times to enhance its emotion. "This sophisticated painting is in equal measure a product of Rembrandt's brush and his intellect," he said. "All the hallmarks of his style in the late 1620s are evident both in the visible painted surface and in the underlying layers revealed by science." (More Rembrandt stories.)
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