# Portrait of a Girl > Rembrandt van Rijn - 17th century > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/rembrandt-van-rijn/rembrandt-portrait-of-a-girl-camden-attic/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-12 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Rembrandt van Rijn - **Date:** 17th century - **Medium:** Oil on oak panel - **Object type:** Painting - **Period:** Dutch Golden Age, 1600-1700 - **Current location:** Private collection, Europe - **Attribution:** disputed ## Summary An oil portrait of a young woman on a cradled oak panel, found by an appraiser among stacks of pictures in the attic of a Camden, Maine estate, catalogued as after Rembrandt against an estimate of ten to fifteen thousand dollars, and sold on 24 August 2024 for a hammer of 1,175,000 US dollars. The press treated it as an attic lottery ticket. It is something considerably more interesting: a picture with a documented nineteenth-century history that nobody reported.It was published as a Rembrandt by Wilhelm von Bode, reproduced as a Rembrandt in the Klassiker der Kunst survey of 1908, catalogued as a Rembrandt by Hofstede de Groot in 1914, and hung as a Rembrandt in the Mauritshuis from 1893, on loan from Abraham Bredius, that museum's former director and the foremost Rembrandt authority of his generation, who owned it. The Mauritshuis catalogue of 1910 records it as signed with the monogram RHL. The 2024 lot record describes it as unsigned. No published argument for the demotion has been found, and nobody has examined the corner where the monogram was recorded.The attribution remains open and this record leaves it open. Gary Schwartz rates the chance of autograph authorship as extremely large and proposes testing it against an accepted Rembrandt in Vienna; Volker Manuth leans against; Betsy Wieseman explains why the question is structurally hard, since Amsterdam painters of the 1630s were working to erase the very traits attribution depends on. All of them say the same thing about method: examine the object first. No authentication body has ruled, and none of the routine technical work has been reported. No ruling has been published as of 2 August 2026. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **c. 1630-1632** Painted, maker disputed `[disputed]` (origin) Dated about 1630-31 by Hofstede de Groot, about 1630 by the Mauritshuis, about 1631 in the 1908 plate caption and circa 1632 in modern structured records. The costume places it in Amsterdam portraiture of the early 1630s. Whether the hand is Rembrandt's, a pupil's or a follower's is the open question of this record. - **-1893** Unknown `[unknown]` (gap) No owner is recorded for the first two and a half centuries of the panel's existence. The earliest documented location is a London dealer's stock in 1893. - **1893** M. H. Colnaghi, London `[documented]` (trade) Recorded by Hofstede de Groot as in the possession of Martin Henry Colnaghi in 1893, when London dealers regarded it as an Aelbert Cuyp. The faded pen note on the Philadelphia Museum of Art label recording a former Cuyp attribution independently corroborates this. - **1893-at least 1914** Dr Abraham Bredius, The Hague `[documented]` (purchase and loan) In the collection of Abraham Bredius (1855-1946), director of the Mauritshuis from 1889 to 1909 and the leading Rembrandt authority of his generation. Lent by him to the Royal Picture Gallery, The Hague, from 1893, where it is entry 577 in the 1910 abridged catalogue, on oak, 0.564 by 0.445 m, signed RHL, painted about 1630. Still recorded as on loan there by Hofstede de Groot in 1914. The date it left the museum and the collection is not documented in the sources consulted. - **c. 1920s-1930** Edward Bok and Mary Louise Curtis Bok, Philadelphia `[disputed]` (acquisition) Press accounts of the 2024 sale state the picture had been in private family ownership since the 1920s. It is plausible that it was acquired by Edward Bok (died 1930), the Dutch-born editor of the Ladies' Home Journal, who is known to have owned a Frans Hals, and the transfer from a Dutch collection to a Dutch-born American collector is a natural route. No document evidencing the purchase has been published, and the entire link from Bredius to the Boks rests on inference. - **1930-January 1970** Mary Louise Curtis Bok Zimbalist, Philadelphia `[disputed]` (inheritance) Sole heir to the Curtis Publishing fortune, widowed in 1930, remarried to Efrem Zimbalist in 1943, died 4 January 1970. That the painting was hers and passed to her son is stated in the tertiary record and is consistent with the 1970 loan slip, but no probate or inventory record has been examined. - **1970-December 1970** Cary W. Bok, Camden, Maine `[documented]` (inheritance and loan) The typed Philadelphia Museum of Art label on the reverse of the frame names Cary W. Bok of Camden, Maine as lender, gives the artist as Rembrandt and the title as Portrait of Girl, in connection with an exhibition in 1970. Cary William Bok died on 29 December 1970, within a year of his mother. The museum has stated it cannot identify which exhibition the slip relates to, and that a loan slip does not authenticate a work. - **1971-2024** Bok family estate, Camden, Maine `[unknown]` (gap) Fifty-four years with no record. The panel was found by the appraiser Kaja Veilleux among stacks of pictures in the attic of a Camden estate during a house call, and consigned as from a Camden, Maine estate. Which family members held it in the interval, and whether it was ever examined or shown, is not documented. - **2024-present** Private collector, Europe `[documented]` (purchase) Bought at Thomaston Place Auction Galleries on 24 August 2024, lot 2363. The auction house describes the buyer as a private European collector; parts of the trade press describe an anonymous private collector in the United Kingdom. The buyer has not been named and no examination of the panel has been reported since. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **2024-08-24** Thomaston Place Auction Galleries, Thomaston, Maine, - Estimate: USD 10,000 - 15,000 - Hammer: USD 1,175,000 - With premium: USD 1,410,000 at a 20 per cent premium, or USD 1,468,750 at 25 per cent; the house has not stated which applied - Lot 2363, Summer Grandeur 2024, Day 2, catalogued as AFTER REMBRANDT HARMENSZOON VAN RIJN (NETH, 1606-1669). Bidding opened at USD 5,000 and ran past sixty bids with 123 bidders. The auction house lot record states a sold price of USD 1,175,000, which is the hammer; the conditions of sale specify a buyer's premium of up to 25 per cent. The three figures in circulation reconcile exactly to that one hammer: 1.2 m is the rounded hammer, 1.41 m is the hammer plus 20 per cent and is the figure in the house's own press release, and 1.47 m (reported as 1.5 m) is the hammer plus 25 per cent and is the figure carried into reference works. The result was a record for the auction house. The three-day sale grossed about USD 3.5 m in total. No source consulted reports the price in any currency other than US dollars. ## Exhibitions - Exhibition not named in reporting, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1970 ## Open questions - Is the RHL monogram recorded by the Mauritshuis in 1910, and described by Hofstede de Groot in 1914 as a partly erased monogram at the upper right, still present on the panel? The 2024 lot record says unsigned. No one has published an examination of that corner. - How did the panel pass from Abraham Bredius in The Hague to the Bok family in Philadelphia, and when? Press accounts say the family owned it from the 1920s, but no bill of sale, dealer record or shipping document has been published, and the loan to the Mauritshuis is documented only up to 1914. - Which Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibition, if any, did the 1970 loan slip relate to? The museum has said it could not identify the show. Its 1970 loan and exhibition registers would settle whether the picture ever hung there, and under what attribution a curator accepted it. - Why was the picture demoted from Rembrandt to after Rembrandt? Bode, the 1908 Klassiker der Kunst survey, the Mauritshuis and Hofstede de Groot all published it as autograph. No published argument for the change of status has been located, and it may simply reflect twentieth-century caution rather than any specific finding. - Is it in Bredius 1935? Bredius owned the panel and published his own Rembrandt catalogue in 1935. Whether he still accepted it by then, and under what number, has not been checked against that volume and would be a direct test of the strongest historical opinion in its favour. - What does the oak say? Dendrochronology would date the felling of the board and could tie it to panels used in Rembrandt's workshop. It is routine, it is non-destructive, and no result has been reported. - Who owns it? The auction house describes a private European collector; parts of the trade press describe an anonymous private collector in the United Kingdom. Neither has been confirmed, and no examination can be commissioned without the owner. ## Sources - [1] Thomaston Place Auction Galleries, lot record for lot 2363, AFTER REMBRANDT HARMENSZOON VAN RIJN (NETH, 1606-1669), Summer Grandeur 2024 Day 2, 24 August 2024. Primary. Gives the catalogue description verbatim, the estimate of USD 10,000-15,000, a sold price of USD 1,175,000 and a buyer's premium of up to 25 per cent. The live site returns 403; consulted via the Internet Archive capture of 9 September 2024. - [2] Antiques and The Arts Weekly, 'Portrait Of A Girl, After Rembrandt, Soars To $1.4 Million At Thomaston Place', 26 August 2024. Trade report; source for the opening bid of USD 5,000, the sixty-plus bids, the 123 bidders and the USD 3.5 m sale total. - [3] Oscar Holland, 'A portrait found in a Maine attic unexpectedly sold for $1.4M. Could it be a long-lost Rembrandt?', CNN, 8 September 2024. Source for Gary Schwartz, Volker Manuth, the Philadelphia Museum of Art response and the conditional valuations. cnn.com returned HTTP 451 to this researcher; consulted in the ABC17/CNN syndication at the URL given. - [4] Portland Press Herald, 'A Thomaston auction house believes it just sold a Rembrandt. Others aren't so sure.', 8 September 2024. Source for Betsy Wieseman of the National Gallery of Art and for Volker Manuth's emailed doubt. NOTE: the site returned HTTP 403 and this source was consulted only through search-result extracts, not a direct read. Verify before publication. - [5] Royal Picture Gallery (Mauritshuis), The Hague, 'Abridged catalogue of the pictures and sculpture in the Royal Picture Gallery (Mauritshuis) the Hague', 1910, page 71, entry 577: 'Portrait of a young girl. On oak, 0.564 by 0.445. Signed: RHL. Painted about 1630. Lent by Dr. A. Bredius, 1893.' PRIMARY. Full text read directly. - [6] Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, 'Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis...', Volume 6, Rembrandt, 1914, page 390, number 853, 'A Young Girl' (B.-HdG. 52). Gives the description, the dating of about 1630-31, the oak panel at 22 1/2 by 17 1/2 inches, the monogram, the Colnaghi and Cuyp episode of 1893, and the Bredius loan to the Royal Gallery. NOTE: quoted from the transcription in source 8; the DjVu page image was not read directly. Check against the page before publication. - [7] Adolf Rosenberg and Wilhelm Reinhold Valentiner (eds), 'Rembrandt: des Meisters Gemaelde in 643 Abbildungen', Klassiker der Kunst, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart, 1908. PRIMARY. The plate of this panel and its printed caption were read directly from the Getty Research Institute scan. - [8] Wikipedia, 'Portrait of a Girl (after Rembrandt)'. TERTIARY. Consolidates the Bredius and Mauritshuis provenance, the Hofstede de Groot transcription, the Bok family descent and the label details. Flagged for replacement by the underlying primary sources 5, 6 and 7 and by the Philadelphia Museum of Art registers. - [9] Boston.com, 'Rembrandt painting discovered in Maine attic sells for almost $1.2 million', 3 September 2024. Independently reports the sale price as USD 1,175,000, corroborating the hammer, and carries Kaja Veilleux on the house call and the attic discovery. - [10] Thomaston Place Auction Galleries press release, 'New England Art Discovery: Rare 17th Century Portrait Fetches $1.4 Million', PR Newswire, September 2024. The auction house's own account: the cradled oak panel, the hand-carved gold Dutch frame, the untouched surface, the verso label, the USD 1,410,000 figure and the private European collector. - [11] Thomaston Place Auction Galleries press release, 'From Attic to Auction Block: Can Maine Repeat Its Rembrandt Discovery?', PR Newswire, 20 August 2025. A year after the sale the firm still refers to the picture only as having been linked to Rembrandt, and reports no authentication, examination or resale. Evidence for the negative finding. - [12] Wikipedia, 'Rembrandt Research Project'. TERTIARY. Source for the 1968 founding, the team, the six Corpus volumes and their dates, the halving of accepted self-portraits, the 2011 wind-up and 2014 closure, the quarter left unexamined and the transfer of the archive to the Rembrandt Database. Flagged for replacement with Corpus volume VI, 2014. - [13] CODART, 'A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings Volume VI: Rembrandt's Paintings Revisited, A Complete Survey presented'. Source for van de Wetering's count of about 340 autograph works, Tuempel's 280 of 1986, and van de Wetering's restoration of about sixty pictures rejected by his predecessors. - [14] Wikipedia, 'Mary Louise Curtis'. TERTIARY. Source for her dates (6 August 1876 to 4 January 1970), the Curtis Publishing inheritance, the marriage to Edward Bok in 1896 and his death in 1930, the Zimbalist marriage of 1943, the sons including Cary William Bok, and the family's Camden, Maine connection including the 1916 library land gift. Flagged for replacement with the Curtis Institute archives. - [15] Wikimedia Commons file record for 'Circle of Rembrandt - A Young Woman in an Interior', giving the current attribution and the Christie's New York sale of 6 June 2012, lot 73. - [16] Smithsonian Magazine and ARTnews coverage of 'The Adoration of the Kings', 2023: circle of Rembrandt at Christie's Amsterdam in 2021 at an estimate of about EUR 10,000-15,000, re-attributed after X-ray, infrared and material analysis, offered at Sotheby's London on 6 December 2023 at GBP 10-15 m and sold for about USD 13.7 m. - [17] Wikipedia, 'Portrait of a Young Gentleman'. TERTIARY. Source for the Christie's sale of 9 December 2016 as circle of Rembrandt at GBP 137,000, the purchase by Jan Six and the re-attribution argument of Ernst van de Wetering. - [18] ARTnews, 'Mauritshuis Says Three Paintings From Collection Are Rembrandt Copies', 2025. NOTE: headline confirmed but the article body could not be retrieved; the three works and the technical basis are unverified here. Verify before publication. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.