Two Rembrandt paintings are up for auction after being hidden in a private collection for almost 200 years. According to auction house Christie’s, which is selling the paintings, the pair are expected to fetch a whopping £5 million to £8 million ($6.25 million to $10 million).
The works of art, portraits of the relatives of the artist Jan Willemsz. van der Pluym and Jaapgen Carels, are signed according to a and dated 1635 Christie’s press release.
The paintings remained in the family of the sitter and wandered between private collections until James Murray offered them for sale at Christie’s in 1824. They remained in a private collection in the UK and have not been seen by the public since to this day.
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The current owners were not named, but Henry Pettifer, international vice chairman of Old Master Paintings at Christie’s, said so CNN The paintings were discovered during a “routine appraisal to inspect the contents of a house”.
He said owners were surprised by the results. “I don’t think they looked into it,” he added. “They had no expectations from the pictures.”
The paintings will tour New York and Amsterdam in June, then be exhibited in London during Christie’s Classic Week from July 1st and go on sale on July 6th.
“This is one of the most exciting discoveries we have made in the field of Old Masters in recent years, and we are delighted to bring this pair of portraits by Rembrandt up for auction this summer, almost 200 years after they were last seen in public were seen,” Pettifer said in the press release.
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“Painted with a deep sense of humanity, these are among the smallest and most intimate portraits we know of Rembrandt, and add something new to our understanding of him as a portrait painter of undisputed genius,” he added.
The most expensive Rembrandt ever sold cost a whopping $25.3 million at Christie’s in 2009.
