Portrait of a Man with Arms Akimbo explained

Other Language 1:Dutch
Other Title 1:Portret van een man met de handen in de zij
Artist:Rembrandt
Catalogue:Rembrandt Research Project, A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings VI: #261
Material:Oil on canvas
Height Metric:107.4
Width Metric:87
Metric Unit:cm
Imperial Unit:in
City:Kingston, Ontario
Museum:Agnes Etherington Art Centre

Portrait of a Man with Arms Akimbo, formerly known as Portrait of a Foreign Admiral or Portrait of a Dutch Admiral, is an oil painting portrait by Rembrandt signed and dated 1658. It is now in the collection of the Agnes Etherington Art Centre at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and measures 107.4 cm by 87.0 cm.

The painting was rediscovered in December 2009 after being off public display for around forty years.[1] 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.[2] [3] 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.[4] [5] The Baders donated the painting to the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in December 2015.[6]

Provenance

This painting was documented by Hofstede de Groot in 1915, who wrote: "827a. A Dutch Admiral. Exhibited at the British Institution, London, 1847, No. 45. In the collection of George Folliot."[7] It was sold in May 1930 from the Folliot collection, but was in the Columbia University art collection when Horst Gerson cataloged it in 1968.[8] It was purchased for a reputed $185,000 by Huntington Hartford, of A & P supermarket chain wealth, who donated it to the university in 1958.[9]

See also

References

  1. http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/rembrandt-harmensz-van-rijn-portrait-of-a-5277765-details.aspx Christie's auction record 8 December 2009
  2. Web site: Rembrandt sale Masterpiece fetches record £20m . 9 December 2009. 2 November 2015. Financial Times.
  3. Web site: Siegal. Nina. Queen's University in Canada Gets a Third Rembrandt From Alfred and Isabel Bader. ArtsBeat. The New York Times. 1 December 2015.
  4. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/arts/design/european-fine-art-fair-maastricht-the-netherlands.html European Fine Art Fair Maastricht
  5. https://web.archive.org/web/20150602184442/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/luxury/art/73498/art-sales-rembrandts-finest-portrait.html Art sales: Rembrandt's finest portrait
  6. Web site: Kerr. Mark. 'Amazing gift' for Queen's. Queen's Gazette. 1 December 2015.
  7. https://archive.org/stream/catalogueraisonn06hofsuoft#page/383/mode/1up Entry 827a for A Dutch Admiral
  8. The portrait is listed as 342. Man met de handen in de zij, 1658, in Horst Gerson's Rembrandt catalog of 1968
  9. http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/lot.1.html/2013/modern-masters-from-rembrandt-to-picass-hk0504 Sotheby's auction record 6 January 2014