How the Lost "Smell" Was Returned, or Why You Shouldn’t Throw Away Your Grandmother’s Inheritance.

 

How the Lost "Smell" Was Returned,

or

Why You Shouldn’t Throw Away Your Grandmother’s Inheritance.

Oh, I’m no good at writing mysteries. It’s a pity, really. Right before me is a plot ready-made for a whole novella! Yet, all that will emerge from my pen is a short story. And it’s not even from a goose quill or a "Parker" pen, but a computer—shorthand without much time for contemplation. Remember those old illustrations in books? The Poet (or Writer) sitting... eyes turned toward the heavens... quill in hand...

Those blessed times have vanished into oblivion! Now you sit and type, terrified that either your thought will fly away or your readers will scatter. Anyway, to business. I stumbled upon a detective story—or rather, I didn’t stumble upon it, I was tipped off by my friend Lena.

Just ten years ago, in 2015, in New Jersey (the "suburb" of the great New York City), a tiny painting appeared at a small auction house called Nye & Company. It was barely larger than a postcard. It was listed as an "insignificant 19th-century Continental School painting" with a starting price of $500–$800. The scene was simple: two people reviving a young man with a cotton swab soaked in smelling salts. The painting was old, it was dirty... and how could it not be old and dirty, having been dragged out of a basement?

Of course, it originally hung in someone’s estate, but when the owners passed away, their belongings, including the painting, were sold off at a simple auction. At that time—back before the Great Depression, in the late 1920s or 1930s—Philip Rappoport, the owner of a silk factory, dropped by the auction. He liked the small painting and decided it would look nice in his dining room. And so, the painting hung there, pleasing the owners and their children, and eventually frightening their growing grandchildren with the "grimaces" of the characters. This all took place in the tiny town of Teaneck, New Jersey. (About forty thousand people live there now; back then, it was much smaller.)

But nothing lasts forever. The grandparents passed away, and in 2010, the mother died as well. As often happens, the children (and there were three sons: Ned, Roger, and Steven Landau)... well, the children didn't need the property amassed by their ancestors. They sorted through their mother's things and sold most of them at a common yard sale.

Somehow, they felt sorry about selling the family silver, and one of the brothers felt sorry for the "strange painting" too. Ned Landau insisted they shouldn't sell it on the street. They tucked the painting into a box along with a silver set and took it with the rest of the items to Roger's basement. Space was tight, so they shoved the box under a ping-pong table. It stood there peacefully for five years. Until it became a nuisance. That box was getting in the way of the players! 

And so, in 2014, Roger finally—finally!—decided to clear out the basement clutter. He brought that box into the light of day and called an auctioneer, John Nye, to evaluate the "accumulated junk." (That is a literal quote.)

And so, that simple painting... (remember? slightly larger than a postcard, old, dirty, covered in varnish darkened by time) was listed by Nye & Company with a starting bid of five hundred dollars. The auctions at that firm were, and still are, held online.

And then it began! My humble pen is not strong enough to describe the battle of the art dealers on the internet. The French fought the Germans.

The price skyrocketed instantly. Two dealers from Paris, Philippe Talabardon and Bertrand Gautier (of the Talabardon & Gautier gallery), immediately suspected—as they later wrote (!)—the hand of a young Rembrandt. In a fierce struggle with another bidder from Germany, Talabardon and Gautier emerged victorious. (Cue the fanfare!)

The painting was sold for $870,000, and including the auction commission, it came to about $1.1 million. For a small auction house, it was a sensation: the price exceeded the starting bid by more than a thousand times.

Like any proper art dealers, Talabardon and Gautier handed the painting over to professional restorers. After the old varnish was cleaned off, they discovered the monogram "RHF" (Rembrandt Harmenszoon Fecit—"Rembrandt, son of Harmen, made this") under the shoulder of one of the characters.

Can you imagine the face of the person cleaning that painting? I wonder, did his hands shake when he realized whose work he was holding?

Well, you and I aren't restorers. What can we compare it to? For me, it would be like reading Eugene Onegin from Pushkin’s original manuscript: holding the yellowed paper (not with bare hands, but in white cotton gloves!), reading the familiar lines, seeing the crossed-out words, tracing how his genius worked to find that one perfect rhyme I've known since childhood... What would it be for you?

The painting turned out to be part of the "Five Senses" series, which Rembrandt painted when he was only eighteen or nineteen years old. Before this discovery, art historians knew of only three paintings from the series ("Sight," "Hearing," and "Touch"). "Smell" was considered lost forever. And then, the painting was found!

By the time of the discovery, two of the paintings in the series were already in Thomas Kaplan’s "Leiden Collection." And if you read my previous story, you know that he couldn't possibly miss this painting. The purchase price was not disclosed, but the all-powerful internet suggests it was around $4 million. The deal was swift.

And so, we saw the three paintings by the young Rembrandt now held in the "Leiden Collection"!

You walk through the hall (this photo was taken at the end of our allotted two-hour viewing, before the next group was let in, when we were practically alone; we were the last to leave), and there is a wall before you with three paintings... 

You can calmly approach, look, and read the commentary...

I will repeat it. 

I want you to realize this. 

These paintings were created around 1624–1625. At that time, Rembrandt was only eighteen or nineteen, just starting his path in Leiden. 

What were you like at eighteen or nineteen? What were you doing? Finishing school? Some unformed teenager (regardless of your gender)? A loafer who didn't know what they wanted to do with their life? Don't be offended; I'm telling the truth, and I include myself in that circle of loafers! What did you do at eighteen that you can boast about now? 

I—nothing.

Rembrandt was eighteen, still living in his native Leiden (Netherlands), but already a professional. Though only at the beginning of his journey, he had his own studio and was painting a series of works (not just one)...

These are the artist's first known paintings.

"The Extraction of the Stone of Folly" (Allegory of Touch)

The painting depicts an "operation." In a dark room, a barber-surgeon (there were no doctors back then! the same person shaved you and treated you!) uses a scalpel to make an incision behind a patient's ear to supposedly extract the "stone of folly." It was believed that madness and stupidity were physical objects in the head that could be removed.

Rembrandt masterfully conveys physical suffering: the patient in the center has his eyes tightly shut and fists clenched in pain; it is an allegory of touch through physical pain. To the right is the "surgeon’s assistant"—an old woman in an exotic turban holding a candle to light the "operating field." 

I actually took her for a man!

Here is a quote for the doubters from the official essay on the collection’s website: "...the candle held by an intense elderly woman with a wrinkled face and clenched jaw... The man’s fur-lined tabard and the woman’s colorful turban are not contemporary attire..."

"The Stone of Folly" isn't just about touch and pain; it was a popular Dutch metaphor for human gullibility. Rembrandt is essentially saying: "Do you really think this is how you get rid of stupidity?!"

"Three Musicians" (Allegory of Hearing)

Three people are gathered around a large book of sheet music, singing. In the center is a young man with a shock of hair (likely a portrait of Rembrandt's friend, Jan Lievens). Well, you remember the portrait of Jan Lievens I showed in the other story—don't you? It was the most romantic portrait in the exhibition, or rather, Jan Lievens’ self-portrait. So, the same man is in both paintings.

In those years (the mid-1620s), Rembrandt and Lievens shared a studio in Leiden and often used each other as models. Flanking the allegory of hearing are an elderly couple. If I hadn't read the annotations, I would have thought everyone depicted was male. The lighting comes from an invisible candle, creating deep shadows. The characters' faces are concentrated, their mouths slightly open in song.

Art historians of the Leiden Collection note that this isn’t just a family idyll, but a contrast between youth (a pure voice) and old age (a raspy voice), a common theme in Dutch culture at the time. It’s also about the fleeting nature of life, vanishing as quickly as a fading sound, and the beauty and harmony of life found in music.

"Unconscious Patient" (Allegory of Smell)

The rediscovered "Smell" is the first (known) painting signed by Rembrandt.

That very "find from the basement." A young man has fainted, and two people are trying to revive him. An elderly woman holds a cloth soaked in a sharp-smelling solution (likely ammonia) to his nose. To the left stands a man in rich clothing with rings on his fingers (perhaps a "doctor" or just a witness). The youth is just beginning to come to, his face expressing confusion.

It was on this painting, above the shoulder of the character in rich attire, that the RHF monogram was found. When I was at the museum, I didn’t know about the monogram. I look for it in the photo—I don't see it, even though I found detailed instructions: Find the central character—the fainting youth. Look at the man standing to the left of the youth (in rich clothing, observing the process). The monogram is on that man's right shoulder (or slightly above it). Looking at the painting, it’s in the upper right quadrant, but not in the very corner; it’s on the background adjacent to the upper part of the sleeve/shoulder.

I didn't find it... 

Later it turned out that since the painting is the size of a postcard, the letters are only a few millimeters high. The young Rembrandt didn't "flaunt" his signature. It is scratched or painted with thin dark lines that blend into the dark background of the interior. Catalogs of the Leiden Collection usually provide a separate macro shot of this fragment because you really can't see it on the full plan. A macro shot!

Do you have any idea why I wrote all this? 

There are several lessons in my story (after all, I am a teacher!). First: not all junk is trash! Especially when it comes to paintings. Especially when it comes to old paintings.

Lesson two: I understand you can’t know everything, and Nye & Company didn't specialize in Rembrandt and the Dutch, but one must be a professional in their field. (They have a photo with the Rembrandt painting on their website, but they don’t advertise the auction story. Not that they need to—they’ve already made their mark.)

And also... I didn't tell you there were five paintings. Five! When the four found paintings were reunited for the first time in centuries and exhibited together at the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford) in 2016, there was an empty frame for the fifth painting. The fifth panel is "Taste."

So, here is what we are looking for: All the paintings are oil on oak panels. (So discard any paintings on canvas! ... Oh, but then it might turn out we failed to recognize the work of some genius.) 

The paintings are very small, approximately 21 × 17 cm. (So don’t even look at large paintings.) 

Most likely, three people are depicted. (One of them is a woman. "Don't get them mixed up, Kutuzov!" Remember where that’s from? - From the movie The Diamond Arm). ) Young Rembrandt didn't have money for models, so he painted his relatives and neighbors. On the lost painting, we will likely see the same people as in the other four: that same old man with the hooked nose, the same young man with the shock of hair, maybe the old woman in the colorful turban...

And most importantly, it won't be a painting of a meal; it won't just be someone sitting at a table eating. It will be a reaction to the taste of something sour like vinegar, salty like herring, or sharp like an onion. The painting will feature faces "grimacing" and heavily distorted by the taste of the food being sampled: with pursed lips, squinted eyes, or sticking out tongues. Rembrandt avoided "pretty" poses and faces in this series.

Most likely, it will be an interior by candlelight, experts say. The young artist was experimenting with light to "sculpt" the people he depicted. 

And if you see an RHF monogram in the upper corners, don't tell anyone! Buy it with the words: "Well, I want to help you out... I'll take this painting, I suppose... Funny how they’re making faces..."

The first paintings of the series surfaced in Europe; "Smell" turned up in New Jersey, America. What everyone is looking for could be anywhere: in someone's basement under a ping-pong table, in storage marked "painting by unknown Dutchman," at an auction annotated as "insignificant 19th-century Continental School"—who knows where else! 

You’ll go down in history along with the discovery. And keep in mind, Thomas Kaplan is a serious man, ready to pay...

P.S.

And now, let’s answer the questions! Yes, answer the questions, otherwise, it’s not fair: I work, I write stories, and you read them (thanks for reading) and then close the page. 

Here is a "review of what was read." Or rather, "Questions and Tasks," like at the end of textbook chapters! Remember?

So, here are your "Questions and Tasks":

1. In which country did Rembrandt live and work? Name his hometown.

2. What is the name of Rembrandt's first series of paintings? How many paintings are in the series?

3. How did Rembrandt sign his first paintings?

Did you smile, or did you take it all seriously?!

You’ve already answered the questions, happy that you can run to the kitchen for a snack of herring and onions (if you add some potatoes and heat up some tea)—and try for yourself: salty, sharp, sweet! We are already truly Rembrandt-esque types: the age fits, and expressive wrinkles have accumulated.

But you won't get away from me that easily. This beautiful detective story was marred by a lawsuit. You could write a script for a TV show here: for the American audience, something like The Jerry Springer Show, and for the Russian, like Gordon’s Male and Female. The kind of loud show where people run on stage slapping each other and screaming, savoring some cockroaches in the basement, with the same guests giving a "judgment" on the "heroes," smearing them across the walls...

But no, everything was civil. There was only court. Or rather, many courts. And this second story only ended in 2023. 

Let’s trace the money in reverse order. Thomas Kaplan paid $4 million. (Well, maybe five, it doesn't matter much. Even to him.) This was after the painting was cleaned, after the signature was discovered, confirming Rembrandt’s authorship (and indirectly confirming authorship for the whole series). Thomas Kaplan knew it was a Rembrandt!

Those $4–5 million went to Philippe Talabardon and Bertrand Gautier (Talabardon & Gautier gallery), who recognized the hand of the young master in a small painting, compared it to the three they already knew, and risked paying $1.1 million for a work that was then officially by "unknown." Professionals!

Of that $1.1 million, some went to Nye & Company (oh, they must be biting their elbows to this day! kicking themselves!), and $870,000 went to the three brothers: Ned, Roger, and Steven Landau. Not bad, considering they only expected $500! (By the way, they weren't at the auction: the Landau brothers missed the moment of triumph because they were observing Yom Kippur and weren't using their phones.) The brothers got $870,000. 

That’s it?

 When it comes to such money—not likely! 

When it became clear in 2015 that the painting was a masterpiece worth millions, a scandal erupted within the family. The Landaus had a cousin who got nothing! 

The cousin, Jay Rappoport, sued his relatives and... Thomas Kaplan! He claimed that his aunt (the Landau brothers’ mother) "secretly removed" the painting from their dying grandmother's house, thereby depriving him of his legal share of the inheritance. Jay’s lawyers even tried to prove that the Landau family knew it was a Rembrandt and intentionally listed it at a small auction to "launder" the provenance and sell it for huge money privately. How’s that for a plot twist? Jay Rappoport tried not only to sue for a share but to get the painting back, claiming he had been cheated.

Only in December 2023 did the New York Court of Appeals finally dismiss Jay Rappoport’s lawsuit. The court ruled that he had no right to sue on behalf of his grandmother’s estate. The auction money stayed with the Landau brothers, and the painting stayed in Kaplan’s collection.

And we walked through the quiet halls of the exhibition, never suspecting the stormy passions that create collections and destroy families...

P.P.S. 

Wow! I’m becoming a productive blogger! I’ve already written eight stories about Boca Raton; I should combine them into a "Boca Raton Observations" cycle. A sort of Boca-Raton-Creative-Period! Why not?! The greats had periods of creativity, so why can’t we, little ones? I want one too! Wow!