For the auction house, the portrait was simply a knockoff of a 17th century Rembrandt so they set a price of $3,100 for it. Buying it for 1,500 times more than that was a British buyer who apparently knew what he was doing. It has been confirmed by experts that the Dutch master, depicted with his head tilted back in easygoing laughter, was indeed the maker of Rembrandt Laughing which was bought from an English auction house for a bargain price amounting to four and a half million.
The price charged by the auction for the artwork was pretty small compared to its value amounting to $30 or $40 million as mentioned by a collector whose specialty is in Dutch and Flemish masters and he was surprised that the price did not reach a higher amount. It was according to the art expert from Sotheby's that the value of the painting could not be changed. Such a sale is a rare opportunity for coming across a work by Rembrandt does not happen as often only coming on the market every few years.
For this particular self portrait Rembrandt made it around 1628 when he was in his early 20s in his Leiden hometown. As he was earning his reputation as an artist he made use of a mirror and his face in order for him to be able to capture expressions of all sorts. It has an incredible presence. When it comes to the laughter and the light, both were in their most natural form.
More than 100 years was how long the painting has been in the hands of an English family. For some, either it was an imitator of Rembrandt or one of his students. Poor photographs may have presented little of the painting's luminosity or depth and these could have been the cause for the low evaluation from the auction house. From a 23 page analysis came the explanation showing how Rembrandt could have been the only one to create the little work considering everything from the brush strokes to the contour, monogram, and materials.
A rare style was used by the artist lasting only a year or so and the winner of the auction might have recognized that the painting was a genuine Rembrandt from the monogram RHL. When it comes to the monogram, it stood for Rembrandt Harmenszoon of Leiden. In its assessment, the auction house recorded the signature HL. More convincing are these initials for they were painted onto the background and the direction of the brush strokes match another one of Rembrandt's monograms.
What confused the experts was the body shape of the laughing Rembrandt. If the little description of the underlying anatomy was not enough, a woolly blanket was used for clothing, it lay in lumpy folds, and the metal armor and glossy shirt appeared amorphous. In his other works he also used the same distinct contour he applied here. It is possible that Rembrandt was trying out a new way of painting the body for the contour had a certain autonomy to it.
Matching the other Rembrandt paintings is the thin copper plate on which the piece is painted when it comes to the size and type. Rembrandt's paintings all have a second painting underneath and this is what the xrays have revealed for this particular painting. People could not give an exact location for the painting before 1800 and there was a time when a Flemish engraver attributed the original to the Dutch painter Frans Hals after making a reproductive print as he did not recognize that the face in the picture was Rembrandt's. No one knew where it stayed afterwards because of the silence that followed.
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