What is the highest price ever paid for a Rembrandt painting at auction?
Portrait of a Man with Arms Akimbo
The painting was rediscovered in December 2009 after being off public display for around forty years. It was purchased by Steve Wynn at Christie's in December 2009 for £20 million, the highest price ever paid for a painting by Rembrandt. In 2011 it was purchased by Isabel and Alfred Bader. They offered it for sale at the 2011 TEFAF art show in Maastricht for 47 million euros. The Baders donated the painting to the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in December 2015.
Soviet sale of Hermitage paintings
Franz Zatzenstein-Matthiesen, a young German art dealer, had been asked by the Soviet Government to compile a list of the hundred paintings in Russian collections, which should never be sold under any circumstances. He was surprised soon afterwards to find several of the paintings on his list were in Paris, purchased by Gulbenkian. Gulbenkian asked him to act as his agent on further purchases, but Matthiesen instead formed a consortium with Colnaghi's of London and with Mellon's firm, Knoedler. In 1930 and 1931 the consortium bought twenty-one paintings from the Soviet government, which they offered to Mellon, who had the right of first refusal. By the end of 1931, Mellon had acquired twenty-one paintings for a total price of $6,654,000. They included Van Eyck's "Annunciation" and Raphael's "The Alba Madonna". The latter painting was sold for $1,166,400, the largest sum ever paid for a single painting until that time. The consortum sold several other paintings to other clients, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.