The wedding portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit, painted by Rembrandt. Photo Art Market Monitor
Two famous wedding portraits painted by Rembrandt are suddenly offered for sale by the French heirs of the Rothschild family. They want to have 150 million euros for the paintings. Reported that the US website Art Market Monitor.
Dutch elite
The two paintings, more than 2 meters high, his marriage portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit, a subsidiary of Amsterdam elite. They represent the good standing of the Dutch bourgeoisie at the beginning of the 17th century. Rembrandt painted them at the beginning of his career.
The 21-year-old and the 23 year old Soolmans Coppit were life-size display for their marriage in Amsterdam. It took the young couple then 500 guilders, which was a year’s salary for a good workman. Such portraits were therefore reserved for the elite.
France let them go
The portraits were purchased in 1877 by Baron Gustave de Rothschild. Only a handful of experts has these paintings ever seen in real life; in 1956, they have been recently seen in the Rijksmuseum and the Boijmans Van Beuningen. The Rothschild family has them now after all this time offered for sale. Remarkably, the French government let them go: most countries do everything possible to keep such famous works within their borders.
Now the French Ministry of Culture and the director of the Louvre have indicated they have no interest in the art, the chances are that they revert to private hands.
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