How ‘Ordinary’ Rembrandt Painting Valued at €13,699 Auctioned Close to €12 Million

After months of rigorous research, a painting that was originally valued at €13,699 has been discovered as a masterpiece by a famous Dutch painter, Rembrandt van Rijn.

Despite the painting’s value, it was bought at €860,000 at a Christie’s auction sale in Amsterdam by an anonymous buyer two years ago. Christie’s tied the value of the painting, “Adoration of the Kings”, to it being worked on by some students of the revered artist, Rembrandt.

The buyer delivered this painting to Sotheby’s in New York for keeping. The auction house initiated an 18-month-long research to disclose the real value of the Rembrandt painting. It concluded the painting as “an autograph work by Rembrandt.”

Before the “Adoration of the Kings” painting which depicts the encounter between the Three Wise Men and the baby Jesus was auctioned at Sotheby’s on Wednesday, December 6, it was valued between €11 million and €17 million. The auction house further adds the painting might have been painted in the early life of Rembrandt in 1628 where he would have been 21 or 22.

The Sotheby’s in a news release further added “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.

“This sophisticated painting is in equal measure a product of Rembrandt’s brush and his intellect. 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, showing multiple changes in the course of its creation, and casting fresh light on how he thought.”

The rare painting by Rembrandt measures 9.6 x 7.3 inches.

Rembrandt van Rijn was a Dutch painter who was born on July 15, 1606, in Leiden, Netherlands. He worked on masterpieces like “The Night Watch”, “The Jewish Bride”, “Betsheba at her Bath” and “Danaë “. He died on October 4, 1669 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.