$20m - $30m Rembrandt at Sotheby's
September 29 2020
Picture: Sotheby's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Sotheby's have just announced that they will be offering Rembrandt's Abraham and the Angels in their January sale in New York. The work, which is signed and dated 1646, will carry an estimate of $20m - $30m. It seems the work will be sold in the same sale as the recently announced $80m Botticelli.
The auction house's press release claims:
This is almost certainly the last opportunity to acquire a painting of a biblical narrative from the Old Testament by Rembrandt, as the only other painting by the artist that depicts a biblical narrative remains in a private collection in the United Kingdom and is subject to British patrimony protection.
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With all of these top paintings coming out of the woodwork for auction, I wonder what will be next?
Update - Artmarketmonitor.com have published the following information regarding the work's provenance:
The work was last sold at auction in 1848 for just £64 at Christie’s, according to the work’s ownership record. Its first recorded owner in 1647 was Dutch entrepreneur Martin van den Broeck. It changed hands several times, and passed through the collections of Benjamin West and Sir Thomas Baring. For decades the work remained in the Heemstede-base von Pannwitz family collection through descent. It then went to the prominent Old Masters collector Alfred Bader in 2004, and from there it came into the hands of veteran dealer Otto Naumann, who is now Sotheby’s Senior vice President and Client Development Director. The present owner acquired it in 2006.
