‘St. Peter’ Expected to Set Auction Mark

An early painting by Rembrandt van Rijn, recently displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and granted the Rembrandt Research Group’s stamp of approval, is expected to set an auction record in May.

Christie’s New York announced on Wednesday that Rembrandt’s 1631 painting, “St. Peter in Prison,” will be sold by an anonymous collector at a May 31 auction of Old Master paintings. The Park Avenue auction house’s preliminary estimate for the work is $10 million to $15 million. If the estimate is accurate, “St. Peter” is likely to break the artist’s record of $10.4 million, set in 1986 for “Portrait of a Girl Wearing a Gold Trimmed Cloak.”

“ ‘St. Peter in Prison’ is one of the finest early Rembrandts in private hands and it’s in wonderful condition,” said Ian Kennedy, head of Christie’s Old Master paintings department. The painting recently excited interest in Japan, where it was taken with a group of Impressionist works to be featured in Christie’s spring sales, he said.

The painting was published in 1982 as a genuine work of the 17th-Century Dutch master by the Rembrandt Research Group. The Amsterdam-based committee began studying all works attributed to Rembrandt 22 years ago and periodically publishes its conclusions. About half the pieces studied so far have been rejected. “You can’t sell a Rembrandt that hasn’t been published by the group,” Kennedy said. “There is considerable scholarly debate about works that have been rejected by the committee, but there is very little debate about those that have been accepted.”

The 23 1/4 x- 18 3/4-inch painting depicts the aging saint on his knees in a prison cell, repenting his betrayal of Christ. A strong, theatrical light illuminates his bearded face and clasped hands. A softer arc of light sweeps around the front of his kneeling form and falls on a set of keys, a symbol of St. Peter.

According to scholars, Rembrandt painted the oil-on-panel work in Leyden in 1631, the year before he moved to Amsterdam. The artist is thought to have used the same model as in his 1630 painting of “Jeremiah” in the Rijksmuseum.

“St. Peter in Prison” belonged to the Count of Choiseul-Praslin in Paris and the Prince of Merode in Belgium before it disappeared into private collections. It was loaned anonymously to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the summer of 1988 and displayed there until the first week of April.