Monograms And Authentic Rembrandts

Considering that one of the portraits was a knockoff of a 17th century Rembrandt, the auction house only set a price of $ 3,100 for it. A British buyer ended up paying 1,500 times more than that but he was completely aware of what he was doing. It has been confirmed by experts that the Dutch master, depicted with his head tilted back in easygoing laughter, was indeed the maker of Rembrandt Laughing which was bought from an English auction house for a bargain price amounting to four and a half million.

According to one of the collectors who specializes in Dutch and Flemish masters it could have easily amounted to about $ 30 or $ 40 million and he was surprised that it did not make as much at the auction. When it came to putting a different value on the painting the art expert from Sotheby’s declined. Considering the works of Rembrandt they only come on the market once every few years and so this sale is such a rare opportunity.

It was in his hometown of Leiden where Rembrandt made this self portrait around 1628 when he was in his early 20s. It was his experimentation with expressions that made him use a mirror and his face at a time when he was already making a name for himself as an artist.

Its presence is somewhat remarkable. Natural was the light as well as the laughter.

Over 100 years was how long an English family previously owned the painting. People thought that it was Rembrandt’s imitator or one of his students.

When the auction house provided a low evaluation, it may have been because of some poor photographs that showed only a little of the painting’s luminosity or depth. But in a 23 page analysis, he described why Rembrandt was almost certainly the creator of the little work, brush stroke, contour, materials and the monogram all point to the master’s hand.

A rare style was used by the artist lasting only a year or so and the winner of the auction might have recognized that the painting was a genuine Rembrandt from the monogram RHL. The monogram was short for Rembrandt Harmenszoon of Leiden.

For the assessment of the auction house, they recorded the signature HL. There are other monograms identified with Rembrandt that possess the same direction in brush strokes as this one making it even more compelling and the initials are also painted onto the background.

The body shape of the laughing Rembrandt ended up bewildering the experts. The clothing a woolly blanket, metal armor and glossy shirt appear amorphous, lying in lumpy folds with little description of the anatomy below.

From this piece came a contour with a character of its own and he used this in his works afterwards. Considering that the contour has a certain autonomy to it this must be due to the fact that Rembrandt was trying out this particular manner of painting the body.

Matching the other Rembrandt paintings is the thin copper plate on which the piece is painted when it comes to the size and type. Underneath this painting is a second painting according to xrays and these show a similar characteristic as that of the other Rembrandt works.

There was no one who knew where the painting was before 1800 and a Flemish engraver accidentally attributed the original to the Dutch painter Frans Hals when he made a reproductive print not seeing how the image bore the face of Rembrandt. With silence afterwards the painting’s location again became unknown.