Long-lost Rembrandt portraits, thought to be the artist’s smallest, go on show in the Netherlands

Having disappeared for almost two centuries, Rembrandt’s smallest formal portraits have been put on display in Amsterdam after being rediscovered earlier this year.

The smallest formal portraits made by Rembrandt have been put on show at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands after being rediscovered earlier this year. Small, oval images of “Jan and Jaapgen” — a wealthy slater and plumber from the Dutch city of Leiden and his wife — disappeared for almost two centuries into a private family collection. The £11.2 million ($14.2 million) paintings have, following extensive research, been accepted as part of the Dutch master’s work and have been unveiled on long-term loan at the Rijksmuseum. “It is mind-blowing,” said Jonathan Bikker, the museum’s curator of 17th-century Dutch painting. “Totally unknown works hardly ever happen. We really wanted to be able to show them.” The 19.9-by-16.5-centimeter (7.8-by-6.5-inch) depictions of 69-year-old Jan Willemsz van der Pluym and 70-year-old Jaapgen Caerlsdr (who were family friends of the artist) were probably painted by Rembrandt in 1635 “as a favor to the couple” at a time when he was Amsterdam’s most-wanted portraitist, the museum said. Jaapgen was visiting Amsterdam for a baptism and, Bikker believes, may have asked Rembrandt for the portraits, intending to have larger copies made later. They are indeed smaller versions of two large works that are not attributed to Rembrandt but were first suspected to be the work of the Dutch master after the Amsterdam city archivist Isabella van Eeghen discovered all four pieces in a 1760 auction catalogue in 1977. Thanks to “compelling evidence” from X-radiography, infrared photography and reflectography, macro X-ray fluorescence, stereomicroscopy and paint sample analysis, the Rijksmuseum formally established the attribution, and the portraits were auctioned in July by Christie’s in London.