The Age of Rembrandt

More info on Rembradt's Late Religious Portraits from the Getty. Click here.

Interesting News blurb: ART MARKET REMBRANDT'S SAINT JAMES THE APOSTLE SELLS FOR $25.8 MILLION AT SOTHEBY'S


Staff Report

NEW YORK, 25 JANUARY 2007—A rare late work by Rembrandt van Rijn was the highlight of the sale of Old Master Paintings at Sotheby's in New York today. Saint James the Greater, signed and dated 1661, was from a group of single figure, half-length "portraits" of religious figures executed by the artist in the late 1650s and early 1660s. It had an estimate of $18/25 million. The painting sold at auction for $25.8 million. The work, which depicts the disciple in profile, turned slightly to the right, was formerly in the renowned collection of benefactor Stephen Carlton Clark, grandson of the founder of the Singer Sewing Machine Company and brother of Sterling Clark, founder of The Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

The painting was purchased by an anonymous telephone bidder, Sotheby's said. The price includes the buyer's premium. The Shippy Foundation, a not-for-profit foundation had tried to sell the painting last year at the Dutch art-fair TEFAF Maastricht for around $50 million. Represented by the New York gallery Salander-O'Reilly, the Rembrandt portrait failed to sell.