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 The portrait of a well-dressed young man with red hair was
presented on Wednesday as the first "new" Rembrandt to surface
since 1974. It will be on display at the Hermitage museum in
Amsterdam for a month.
With the help of an unnamed investor, Six snapped up "Portrait
of a Young Gentleman", painted around 1634, for a bargain at
137,000 pounds ($185,000) at the London auction. Given past
sales, it will likely now be worth very much more.
"Finding a Rembrandt is a tremendous feeling", Six told Reuters.
Six has a special relationship with Rembrandt, having grown up
in a house filled with classic Dutch artwork, including a
Rembrandt portrait of one of his ancestors, a former Amsterdam
mayor, also called Jan Six, as the centerpiece.
With his knowledge of the artist and the period, Six noticed a
particular type of collar the subject of the painting wears,
which was only in fashion for a short time around 1633 and was
painted in a style that only Rembrandt used in those days.
The specialist on Dutch and Flemish old masters then spent 18
months using X-ray techniques and analysis of paint samples to
prove he had in fact bought a real Rembrandt.
The 39-year-old art dealer eventually won the backing of more
than a dozen Rembrandt experts, including the former leader of
the Rembrandt Research Project, who spent a year verifying its
authenticity.
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"Seeing all these experts agreeing to what you've found is truly
special. With the support of this vast body of knowledge, anybody
contesting the painting would clearly represent a minority," Six
said.
Until now, the existence of the painting had been completely
unknown, as there was no previous literary reference to it. This
makes the discovery different from other paintings attributed to
Rembrandt over the years, as they were already known to exist.
But Six says he knew exactly what he saw when he laid eyes on the
painting at Christie's.
"I saw so many details pointing in Rembrandt's direction, that I was
totally convinced," he said.
The newly discovered Rembrandt, measuring just under a meter high,
is thought to have been painted when the artist was 28. It was
almost certainly cut out of a larger painting, experts say, probably
also depicting the young man's wife.
Six said he will now try to find a buyer for his discovery, but he
did not want to speculate on how much it might be worth.
($1 = 0.7407 pounds)
(Reporting by Bart Meijer; Editing by Anthony Deutsch and Alison
Williams)
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