Posted on Sun, Jul. 13, 2008

The auction house thought the portrait was a 17th century Rembrandt knockoff and valued it at just $3,100. But the British buyer who paid about 1,500 times more than that apparently knew what he was doing.

Experts have confirmed Rembrandt Laughing -- bought for a bargain price of $4.5 million at an English auction house in October -- is a self-portrait by the Dutch master, depicted with his head tilted back in easygoing laughter.

William Noortman from Noortman Master Paintings, specializing in Dutch and Flemish masters, said it's worth $30 million to $40 million. ''I'm very surprised,'' he says, ``it didn't make more at auction.''

Art expert Jan Six from Sotheby's declined to put a new value on the 9 ½- by 6 ½-inch painting. But he says the sale was a rare opportunity, as Rembrandt's works come on the market only once every few years.

''A self-portrait by Rembrandt, that's absolutely unique -- not in my lifetime,'' Six says.

Rembrandt made the self-portrait about 1628, when he was in his early 20s and still in his hometown, Leiden. Already he was earning his reputation as an artist and experimenting with a mirror to capture his expressions.

A PRESENCE

''It has an incredible presence,'' says Ernst van de Wetering, head of the Rembrandt Research Project and an authority on the Dutch master. ``The light has the most natural quality of light you can think of. . . . And I love the naturalness of the laughing.''

The painting had been in the hands of an English family for more than 100 years, according to Moore, Allen and Innocent.

Some experts had assumed it to be by one of Rembrandt's students or a Rembrandt imitator.

Van de Wetering says he thought the auction house's low evaluation had been based on poor photographs that showed little of the painting's luminosity or depth.

But in a 23-page analysis, Van de Wetering describes why Rembrandt was almost certainly the creator of the little work: Brush stroke, contour, materials and the monogram all point to the master's hand.

The auction's winner may have suspected the painting was a genuine Rembrandt from the monogram RHL, painted in a rare style that the artist only used for about a year. It stands for Rembrandt Harmenszoon of Leiden.

The initials become more compelling proof considering that they were painted onto the wet paint of the background and that the direction of the brush strokes matches another monogram known to be Rembrandt's.

Experts also were confused by the shape of the laughing Rembrandt's body. The clothing -- a woolly blanket, metal armor and glossy shirt -- appears amorphous, lying in lumpy folds with little description of the anatomy below. Yet the contour has character that is repeated in some of the painter's later works.

''If you look at this contour, it has a certain autonomy,'' Van de Wetering says, adding that it may have been one of the first times Rembrandt tested out this way of painting the body.

The thin copper plate on which the piece is painted matches up in size and type with those used in other Rembrandt paintings.

SECOND PAINTING

X-rays reveal a second painting underneath -- its content and composition also consistent with other Rembrandt works.

It is unclear where the painting had been before 1800, when a Flemish engraver made a reproductive print and attributed the original to the Dutch painter Frans Hals without realizing the face in the picture was that of Rembrandt.

''After that there is silence about the painting. We don't know where it stayed,'' Van de Wetering says.