May 05--When the small painting with a slightly damaged surface and cracks in its wood backing materialized in September at an auction house in New Jersey, no one expected great things.
First and foremost was its murky provenance: The name of the artist was unknown, and so was the date of its creation. The auction house estimated that the work would sell for $500 to $800.
"We had no idea when it came up to sale that there were about to be fireworks," said John Nye, who runs the Bloomfield, N.J.-based Nye and Co.
In a matter of months, the seemingly unremarkable painting would become the talk of the international art world after it was judged to be a long-lost work by the 17th century Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn.
The painting's journey from a basement in New Jersey to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where it will be displayed alongside other works by Rembrandt starting May 11, is a story that involves a pair of eagle-eyed Paris art dealers and a New York financier with deep pockets and a fondness for Dutch art.
The Getty will be the first museum to exhibit the recovered painting, which disappeared from public view for centuries and was given up as lost to history.
"The Unconscious Patient (An Allegory of Smell)" is among Rembrandt's earliest known works, dating from 1624, when he was about 18. It depicts an unconscious youth receiving what could be smelling salts from one of two attendants.
The work of art stands just 9 inches tall. It was one of five pieces that the young Rembrandt created to depict the five senses. The Getty said the exhibition will feature two other paintings -- hearing and touch -- from the series.
Nye and Co. listed "Unconscious Patient" as a painting by an unknown artist. The catalog for the Sept. 22 sale described the work as dating from the 19th century.
Nye didn't identify the northern New Jersey family the owned the painting but said he was called to their home to look at items for possible consignment. "I found it in the basement," he said.
He said that the parents had died and that the brothers had taken what they wanted. He identified some art and silver that he deemed would be auction-worthy.
As for the Rembrandt, "it was in a Victorian frame," Nye recalled. "There were a lot of reasons we surmised it was 19th century."
Soon after the auction was announced, two Paris art dealers, Bertrand Talabardon and Bertrand Gautier, took note of the painting. They had a hunch that the piece was a Rembrandt, but "we weren't completely certain at the time that it was authentic. ... Maybe 90% certain," Talabardon said by phone.
The dealers, who run the Galerie Talabardon et Gautier in Paris, said they are normally wary of early Rembrandts, explaining that the artist's students were close to him and that they created works in a style that could easily be confused for the real thing. But there were many stylistic similarities between the painting for sale and other early Rembrandts, especially those in the five-sense series, they said.
The vaguely exotic costumes worn by the characters in the painting are similar to those in the other works of the series. The idiosyncratic faces also bore similarities.
"All of that made me think of Rembrandt," Talabardon said.
They decided to bid for the piece by phone at the Sept. 22 auction. But they weren't the only ones who spied a potential treasure, according to Nye and Co. Two other parties from two European countries also ended up bidding for the painting, pushing up the selling price.
The Paris dealers ultimately prevailed, paying $870,000, or close to $1 million with the premium that auction houses typically add to the sale.
The following day, they received word that New York financier Thomas Kaplan was interested in purchasing the painting. Kaplan heads the Electrum Group, a privately owned investment management company that invests primarily in natural resources and precious metals, including gold.
Kaplan and his wife, Daphne, also own one of the world's largest private collections of art from the Dutch Golden Age. The Leiden Collection holds works by Vermeer, Rembrandt and other painters from around the 17th century.
Gautier traveled to New York to negotiate the deal aboard Kaplan's yacht, according to the gallery. The negotiations lasted about an hour. The gallery declined to say how much Kaplan paid for the work.
Kaplan wasn't available for comment but said in a statement that the discovery of the painting and its inclusion in his collection have been "a tremendous delight for me and my wife."
The Leiden collection also owns the two other "sense" paintings that will be on display at the Getty.
A fourth known piece from the set, the sight painting, is in the collection of the Lakenhal Museum in Leiden, the Netherlands. The whereabouts of the fifth painting in the series remain unknown.
"It's not uncommon for works by a super-famous artist to go off the radar," said Anne Woollett, a curator at the Getty who specializes in northern European painting prior to 1800.
She noted that Rembrandt's early style was markedly different from his mature style, and that meant the smell painting could easily have been misidentified.
After Kaplan purchased the Rembrandt, the painting was restored. During the process, which removed a layer of varnish, an artist's monogram was discovered in the upper left corner that reads "RF."
The monogram has been taken to stand for "Rembrandt Fecit," or "Made by Rembrandt." It is believed to be the earliest signature by Rembrandt on a work of art.
"After that, there was little doubt," said Talabardon, the Paris dealer.
The restored painting was unveiled earlier this year to great fanfare at the TEFAF art fair in Maastricht, the Netherlands.
"I think it's a very exciting discovery," said Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., a curator at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, where he specializes in Baroque paintings from northern Europe.
"It shows Rembrandt at the very outset of his career." At the time, the artist was changing his style "on a monthly basis. It's amazing to watch his quick evolution as an artist."
Over the years, Kaplan has lent the Getty works from his collection, and his new acquisition seemed like a good fit for the institution.
"In a way, it was a natural thing to do," said Timothy Potts, director of the Getty Museum. "We have great early Rembrandts, so we are, from that perspective, the right place for this to be unveiled."
The display is a loan, and the Getty has not acquired the painting. "Even the Getty can't purchase everything," Potts said.
In 2013, the museum acquired a small-scale self-portrait of Rembrandt, showing the artist laughing. The work dates from around 1628.
"Unconscious Patient" will be displayed at the Getty along with Rembrandt's "Portrait of a Girl Wearing a Gold-Trimmed Cloak" and "Portrait of a Rabbi," both of which are on long-term loan to the Getty from the Leiden.
The exhibition will run through Aug. 28, after which it is scheduled to travel internationally.
david.ng@latimes.com
