$50 Million Painting Given Free to Britain's National Trust

Back in the 1960's an art collector by the name of Harold Samuel, of Essex, England, who was a Dutch and Flemish art collector. bought a painting of Rembrandt that was supposed to have been done by one of his students. He hung it on his wall and enjoyed it until his death in 1987. His wife, Edna Nedis, kept the painting until she died in 2008, and then the painting went to their estate. 

When the executors of the estate started cleaning house, the trust forbid the painting to be sold, so they donated it to Britain's National Trust. Since the trust has to report the value of everything they have, they sent the painting off to a Rembrandt specialist, Dr. Ernst van de Wetering, to see what it was worth. He fiddled with it awhile, and had technicians remove several layers of varnish to analyze the artist's signature. "The signature and date of 1635, inscribed both on the front and back of the panel, had been considered problematic in previous assessments as it was thought that the style and composition was much more akin to [Rembrandt's] style slightly later in his career," Christine Slottvedd Kimbriel of the Hamilton Kerr Institute told reporters. "But the cross-section analysis left no reason to doubt that the inscription was added at the time of execution of the painting." The varnish stripping also enabled the researchers to see the painting's true colors. "The varnish was so yellow that it was difficult to see how beautifully the portrait had been painted," David Taylor, painting and sculpture curator at The National Trust, said. "Now you can really see all the flesh tones and other colours, as well as the way in which the paint has been handled - it's now much easier to appreciate it as a Rembrandt." 

Finally, an X-ray photography and infrared refrectography showed compositional changes in keeping with Rembrandt's own work habits. "Changes to the outline of the figure, carried out at a late stage and without much care to perfectly match the surrounding paint, were also present," Ms. Kimbriel said. "Such alterations are present in many of Rembrandt’s own works, suggesting a dynamic process of painting typical of Rembrandt."


The painting was reportedly created in 1635 when Rembrandt was 29. Now that it has been authenticated, the formerly almost worthless painting that was given away by the Samuel estate has been conservatively estimated at 30 million pounds or about $50 million.