IF REMBRANDT HAD KNOWN
Two thousand one hundred guineas ■were paid a few weeks ago in a London saleroom for a small portrait by Rembrandt. This worked out at £4 19s 4d the square inch. Rembrandt would have been surprised (comments George Edinger in the ‘ Sunday Express ’). In his most flourishing days he thought himself lucky to get £25 for a portrait. When he went bankrupt in 1657 all his sketches and drawings were sold for £SOO. This is not a unique case. Vincent van Gogh, when he died in 1890, was too poor to afford to buy his paints. To-day his pictures fetch between £3,000. and £4,000. His friend, Gauguin, was glad to exchange canvases now worth £3,000 for a glass of beer. In the last six years Christopher Wood’s paintings, for which London dealers gave him £5. have risen to £3OO and more. On the other hand, a picture by Alma-Tadema worth oOOgs 40 years ago, would not fetch £5 today.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ESD19370220.2.30.5
Bibliographic details
Evening Star, Issue 22578, 20 February 1937, Page 7
Word Count
163IF REMBRANDT HAD KNOWN Evening Star, Issue 22578, 20 February 1937, Page 7
Using This Item
Allied Press Ltd is the copyright owner for the Evening Star. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons New Zealand BY-NC-SA licence. This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Allied Press Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in