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 "The Unconscious Patient (An Allegory of the Sense of Smell)"
depicts two men wafting a rag under the nose of a third man who
is swooning and is dated 1624, the museum said in a press
release.
The 8-1/2-by-7-inch (22-by-18-cm) work is among a series of five
paintings on the senses that Rembrandt created as a teenager,
and will be displayed with two others - hearing and touch - from
Wednesday until Aug. 28, when the exhibit will travel
internationally.
The painting's slog from a New Jersey basement to the upper
echelons of the art world began in July when adult children
cleaning out their family home in Essex County after their
parents died contacted John Nye, owner of Nye and Co auction
house in Bloomfield, New Jersey.
"The picture was remarkably unremarkable," Nye said, recalling
the oil painting was flaking. "It looked like a dark, discolored
portrait of three people, one of whom is passed out."
When the painting went up for auction in September, Nye
estimated it would fetch up to $800, having spent two weeks on
display on the auction house wall and in its online catalog.
That is where sharp-eyed art aficionados from three different
European countries spotted it, ultimately leading to a Paris art
dealer's winning bid of $870,000, or about $1.1 million
including the typical added sale premium, Nye said.
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 "I was stunned," Nye said in a phone interview.
Soon the Paris dealer was in contact with New York financier
Thomas Kaplan, who heads the investment firm Electrum Group, and
is founder of the Leiden Collection, one of the world's largest
private collections of Dutch Golden Age art.
Restoration of the piece confirmed suspicions - it revealed the
initials RHF, for Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn fecit.
"Basically, he put his name down and 'fecit' means 'made this,'"
said Nye.
Rembrandt's painting of the fourth sense - sight - is in a
museum in the Netherlands but the whereabouts of the fifth sense
- taste - remains unknown.
"If someone sees an allegorical painting of three fancifully
dressed people eating, call me and I'll come check it out," Nye
said.
(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
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