A Man Who Bought a Painting for $500 in a Bar Claims It’s a $30 Million Rembrandt—But Experts Say It’s a Case of Wishful Thinking

by admin

Aug 6, 2019

artnet

A sympathetic barfly who bought a panting from a down-and-out
stranger believes his good deed will pay off big time. He claims
the €500 ($560) painting of Jesus that he bought off a stranger at
a bar near Liège could be a lost Rembrandt worth €30 million ($33
million). Unfortunately, the feel-good tale might be too good to be
true.

The businessman from Verviers in Belgium declined to give his
full name and told local press to call him
“Mr. Jo.” He says he bought the work off a stranger who explained
that he was buried in debt and asked for €500 for the painting,
called Ecce Homo (no relation to the botched Beast Jesus
fresco of the same name). Mr. Jo says he took pity on the man
and forked over the cash to help him out.

The anonymous patron says he displayed the work in his home for
a spate, until an art-savvy friend suggested he get it evaluated by
an expert. Mr. Jo says he had it examined several times after
specialists noticed similarities in technique to Rembrandt. Soon
enough, he claims, a member of the Belgian Chamber of Art
Experts attributed it to the Dutch Golden Age painter, and
reportedly valued the “exceptional” work at over €30 million. Mr.
Jo says he plans to sell the work and use the money to invest in
his favorite soccer club.

The story is making the
rounds now because Mr. Jo has announced his ambitions to sell the
work, but the attribution is not fresh. Belgian newspaper
L’avenir identified the expert referred to in the original
report as Baudouin Van Steenberghe, a collector and member of the
Association of Belgian Art Experts who died in 2008.

The paper has raised skepticism about the attribution, however,
reporting that an unnamed source within the industry said that the
work is “a fake.” The publication also cites a study
by the Brussels-based Royal Institute for Cultural
Heritage suggesting the
painting could not be by Rembrandt because it dates from
between 1676 and 1699, after
the artist’s death in 1669.

A member of the institute confirmed to the Belgian paper that it
examined the work, but demurred at the attribution. “At the time,
it was presented to us… by an intermediary, to date it. We did not
say it was a Rembrandt and, reading the press reports, it is
impossible to know.” The organization says it has not seen
references to the work in any existing publications on
Rembrandt.

Experts contacted by artnet News, including the British art
historian Martin Royalton-Kisch and Michiel Franken, a curator at
the Netherlands Institute for Art History, had not heard of the
work, and could not say anything authoritative about the image
without seeing detailed pictures of it.

(This journalist is no Rembrandt expert, but a hard-to-find alleged image of
the work depicting a sickly Jesus, reproduced in a Dutch paper,
doesn’t look like anything that will be hanging in a museum anytime
soon.)

“These stories happen from time to time,” Royalton-Kisch says,
“but quite often the pictures turn out to be copies rather than the
real thing.” Specialists in 17th century painting at the Belgian
Association of Art Experts did not return a request for comment by
press time.

The post A Man Who Bought a Painting for $500 in a Bar
Claims It’s a $30 Million Rembrandt—But Experts Say It’s a Case of
Wishful Thinking appeared first on artnet News.