The Jefferson Agrarian

It appears that Las Vegas casino owner Stephen A. Wynn has once again added to his already impressive art collection.

According to Carol Vogel of the New York Times, “the mysterious telephone bidder who paid $33.2 million for a Rembrandt portrait at Christie’s in London last week was buying the painting on behalf of …. Wynn, according to several experts familiar with the transaction.”

The painting Portrait of a man, half-length, with his arms akimbo had been held in a private collection, and went on public display for the first time in decades this month ahead of the auction, Christie’s said. The portrait has a very interesting provenance, which probably added to the allure it held for Mr. Wynn.

Portrait of a man, half-length, with his arms akimbo was first recorded in 1847 at an exhibition at the British Institution in London where it was lent from the collection of a George Folliott (d.1851). His grandson sold the picture at auction in London on 14 May 1930 where it realized $30,000 – quite a chunk of change at the time. Soon afterwards, it was acquired by George Huntington Hartford II, a prominent American art collector and was an heir to the The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company fortune. He acquired the work while only in his 20s and described it throughout his life as ‘the greatest Rembrandt portrait I have ever seen’.

Hartford donated the portrait to Columbia University in 1958 where it hung in the President’s office. When students occupied the office during a demonstration in 1968, the portrait was removed and put into storage before being sold privately in 1974 to benefit the endowment fund of the University. It has been in a private collection since 1974 – it last belonged to Barbara Piasecka Johnson, whose husband, J. Seward Johnson, was the son of the founder of Johnson & Johnson – and has been unseen in public since it was shown at the exhibition Rembrandt After 300 Years at The Detroit Institute of Arts in 1970.

The price paid for the work was a world record for a Rembrandt at auction and the fourth highest price ever for an Old Master painting sold at auction, Christie’s said.

According to a pre-sale Christies press release, “measuring 42 inches by 34 inches, the portrait shows an unknown subject standing facing the viewer in a defiant pose with his hands on his hips, and is one of only two Rembrandts dated 1658. The brushstrokes are painted onto the canvas with a loose yet controlled mastery, and as with the best of the artist’s late works, it boasts a mesmerising use of light and shade. While the sitter is unknown, he is wearing an unusual costume, perhaps suggesting that he was a visitor to Amsterdam; the painting has previously been called Portrait of an Admiral.”

Wynn owns an extensive art collection, including paintings by Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Édouard Manet, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, and Johannes Vermeer (although the authenticity of the “Vermeer” remains in dispute). Recently he spent a record price for a painting by J. M. W. Turner, $35.8 million for the Giudecca, La Donna Della Salute and San Giorgio and spent $33.2 million on a Rembrandt, the auction record for the artist.