Rembrandt left fingerprints on painting while it was still wet
FINGERPRINTS thought to be those of the artist Rembrandt have been discovered in a small oil sketch dating back almost 400 years.
Study Of A Head Of A Young Man, measuring just under 10in (25cm) high, is expected to fetch around £6million when it is auctioned in London next month.
And, buried in the original layer of paint, in the lower edge of the “powerful and touching” portrait from around 1655, experts found what are believed to be the Dutch master’s thumbprints.
No other prints of the painter have ever been found, and while it is impossible to confirm they are Rembrandt’s, experts believe they are the Dutch master’s “only known fingerprints”.
They were uncovered during a process of technical examination and restoration, which included pigment analyses, X-ray and infra-red imaging.
George Gordon, the worldwide cochairman of Sotheby’s Old Master paintings, the auction house selling the work, called the find an “extraordinary discovery”.
He told the Press Association that, from the placing of the thumbprints, it was possible to imagine the painting being “picked up with their fingers behind it and their thumbs on the lower edge”.
“This shows that Rembrandt was happy with the painting while it was still wet. He painted it very quickly,” he said. Asked how confident experts were that the fingerprints were Rembrandt’s, he said: “We can’t be 100 per cent sure. But what is certain is that it is somebody that picked up the painting as soon as it was finished.”
He said that the portrait had a “spiritual and emotional impact”.
Study Of A Head Of A Young Man, which portrays Rembrandt’s model as Jesus, goes on display at Sotheby’s London from Nov 30 before being auctioned on Dec 5.