An original Rembrandt, lost since the 17th century, entitled “Portrait of a Girl,” was found in the attic of a house in Maine and sold for an astonishing $1.4 million at auction.
the Thomaston Place Auction Galleries said.
The historic artwork was included in the gallery’s annual Summer Grandeur sale on Aug. 24, contested by three competitive phone bidders for the masterpiece.
The winning bid came from an anonymous European collector, representing a record-breaking sale for the New England auction house, who described the discovery of the painting as a “once-in-a-lifetime” event.
Zebulon Casperson, representative for the winning bidder said in a statement:
“Of all the phone bids I have handled, I could never have dreamed that I might help close for over one million dollars. It feels like a team victory.
The portrait of a girl, in a black gown, white headwrap, and ruff was discovered while appraising a private estate in Camden, Maine.
“We often go in blind on house calls, not knowing what we’ll find,” said Thomaston Place Auction Galleries’ founder Kaja Veilleux.
The painting, executed on cradled oak and framed in hand-carved wood, was listed as lent to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1970 by Cary W. Bok, the former treasurer and senior vice president of the Curtis Publishing Company, who died that year.
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