Thomas Kaplan, Leiden Collection, 9 Milyon Dolar Değerindeki Rembrandt Resmini Satın Aldı
Thomas Kaplan, Leiden Collection sahibi, Sotheby’s’te 6,75 m £ (9 m $) ödeyerek 1661 tarihli Rembrandt ‘St John on Patmos’ eserini satın aldı. Bu, koleksiyonunun son iki on yılda 18. Rembrandt’i ve piyasa üzerindeki potansiyel etkisini gösteriyor.
The oil painting St John on Patmos, created around 1661, was sold at Sotheby’s in December 2025 for £6.75 million (approximately US $9 million). The buyer has been disclosed as Thomas Kaplan, New York‑based owner of the Leiden Collection, which now includes its eighteenth Rembrandt work acquired in the last twenty years.
The work’s provenance traces back to an 1904 sale by an American dealer who attributed it to Carel Fabritius and sold it for $160. In 1913 Wilhelm Valentiner, then curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, recognised it as a Rembrandt and purchased it for $525. After passing through the collection of Fritz Thyssen, who endured Nazi persecution and later restitution, the painting was inherited by his grandson Federico Zichy Thyssen and placed in a family foundation until its recent Sotheby’s offering. Recent conservation revealed iconography identifying the sitter as St John rather than Titus.
Kaplan explains that the acquisition serves both preservation and public access, with the painting slated for a European exhibition of the Leiden Collection in autumn 2027. He also notes that his repeated purchases of Rembrandt works influence market dynamics, as sellers recognize his interest and may adjust expectations. While he acknowledges a possible price effect in specific moments, he stresses the scarcity of genuine Rembrandt masterpieces as the primary driver of value.
