Seventeen Rembrandts in Boca Raton,
or
How We Saw 17th-Century Holland in Florida.
This is a truly unique event for Florida. Actually, not just for Florida—for the entire United States! And as luck would have it, I found myself in the right place at the right time. Or rather, "we" did, since there were three of us, three friends. Oleksandra and I were visiting Elena, who had moved from Los Angeles to Florida. It was Lena who discovered that quite close to her house, there was a stunning exhibition! Getting to something like this is a lifelong dream.
I’ve written enough for you to say, "Enough already, tell us what it's about!" Have I prepared you for a trip to the museum?
The exhibition is held at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach. It’s about a thirty-to-forty-minute drive from Boca Raton, where my friend lives. (Well, I hope you’ve read my other stories.)
This is the largest exhibition of 17th-century Dutch painting from private hands ever presented in the US. It features over seventy-five works, including all seventeen Rembrandt originals held in the Leiden Collection. The exhibition was organized jointly by The Leiden Collection (New York) and the Norton Museum of Art.
No, you read that and didn’t quite grasp it. About seventy-five works by Rembrandt and 17th-century Dutch masters in one place. Seventeen paintings by Rembrandt himself. (I go to our Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, Los Angeles, to look at two—two!—Rembrandt paintings, and here there are so-o-o many...!)
And all these paintings belong to a collection owned by one (one!) person. Are you really not curious to know which paintings are on display, who can afford to own a Rembrandt, and what this person’s name is?!
I visited the exhibition, and the impression will last a lifetime. Now I am answering the questions I asked myself; join me, let’s try to find the answers together in the public domain—that is, on our beloved internet.
How can I convey the significance of the displayed paintings so that everyone, not just fans of 17th-century Dutch art, is impressed? Let’s talk about the cost of the paintings; money is a category everyone understands.
Here, however, an obstacle arose: such money and such deals are involved that the participants prefer not to talk about them, so the figures I will cite are approximate. (Well, a million more, a million less... what difference does it make to us?!)
Let’s start with Rembrandt.
"The Extraction of the Stone of Folly (Allegory of Touch)" from the early "Senses" series. Despite its small size, this is a very rare early period. The estimated value could be $10–15 million.
"Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyes" is one of the jewels of the collection. Given that Rembrandt’s self-portraits are the "holy grail" for collectors, its price at an open auction could easily exceed $50–70 million. For reference: in 2020, a similar small self-portrait was sold at Sotheby's for $18.7 million, but works from the Leiden Collection are often considered more significant.
Are you counting or what? I’ve already lost track. And I’m tired of evaluating the invaluable, like Rembrandt, by the number of paper bills given for the paintings, even the green ones. Though, I think I’ve impressed you—and unexpectedly, myself as well.
"And who has that kind of money for such purchases?" you ask me. I haven’t forgotten, I haven’t forgotten, wait a bit, not all at once.
Oh, wait, we’re not done with the money yet: Johannes Vermeer, "Young Woman Seated at a Virginal"—this is the only work by Vermeer in a private collection.
"What is that person’s name?!" I heard your cry. Wait, wait, first a little information about the Leiden period. I need to find this out and remember it for myself; I can't just collect information for the readers.
So, why is the collection called "The Leiden Collection"?
The answer lies at the very beginning of Rembrandt’s creative path. It was in Leiden, his hometown, where he opened his first studio; the name is a tribute to that "starting point" where the genius of Rembrandt and his circle was born. The collection brings together works not only by the master himself but also by his outstanding contemporaries: his first pupil Gerrit Dou and his main rival Jan Lievens. This is the very "Golden Age" of Dutch painting. (Well, if you look at the cost of the paintings, it really is the "Golden" age in the literal sense, excuse my dark humor.)
Who is this person?! We demand a name!
You’ve waited for it: the owner of the paintings is Thomas Kaplan. All the paintings belong to Thomas Kaplan and his wife, Daphne Recanati-Kaplan.
Kaplan is an American billionaire who made his fortune investing in metals (gold, silver). And here, perhaps, is the most interesting part: he began gathering his "Leiden Collection" only in 2003. I generally thought that all Rembrandts were in the world's major museums, that all paintings were attributed, bought-sold, and hanging in permanent exhibitions, accessible to everyone and for everyone's joy. But it turned out that this is not the case at all (not so at all... far from so...).
In an incredibly short period, Thomas Kaplan bought up almost all the Rembrandt masterpieces and those of his circle available on the market. Until 2006, no one knew who was buying up all the Dutch masters. The collection was anonymous until Kaplan decided that "paintings shouldn’t be kept in a safe" and began exhibiting them. To be fair, the owner of the Rembrandt paintings has a philosophy: he calls himself not an "owner," but a "custodian." His collection does not have its own museum—the paintings are constantly sent on a world tour (Paris, Beijing, Abu Dhabi, Moscow) so that as many people as possible can see them. Kaplan believes that art of this level should belong to humanity.
Thomas Kaplan does not act like a typical collector who buys one painting a year. In the early 2000s, he hired one of the best art dealers in the world, Otto Naumann, and gave him carte blanche.
The billionaire became famous for making purchase decisions in a matter of minutes. When a Rembrandt or one of his pupils appeared on the market, he didn’t wait for auctions but tried to buy them privately, offering a price that was impossible to refuse.
In the art world, they joked that Kaplan worked like a vacuum cleaner—he took everything best related to the Leiden school. Once, he bought nine paintings in a single day.
How did he buy the only Vermeer in private hands? (That same "Young Woman Seated at a Virginal"—the subject of absolute admiration for one of my friends. Lena taught me to look at this painting with delight, too.) Thomas Kaplan literally "snatched" it from the mogul Steve Wynn. Wynn initially didn’t want to sell, but Kaplan proposed such a scheme of exchange and additional payment that the deal became a legend in exclusive art clubs. However, the legend is told in those exclusive art clubs, and we have no entry there.
It’s not that I have a bad attitude toward wealthy people; I treat them with distrust. Imagine you bought Rembrandt’s "Minerva" and hung the painting in your dining room...
(Well, if you have a dining room, if you have a dining room of such dimensions, and given the cost of the painting, if you have money left "to eat" after the purchase...) But imagine yourself as the happy owner of a painting of this caliber.
It seems to me you would tremble over it, show it only to select guests, and increase the security of your house as much as your money allows. Or am I wrong? Thus, having gathered a collection, to make the exhibition traveling, to exhibit the paintings in museums around the world, to give people—ordinary people like me—a chance to see it with their own eyes (their own eyes, not the eyes of curators, guides, or experts in the supplements to reproductions in books) is, at the very least, worthy of respect. Furthermore, Thomas Kaplan writes that his purchases are a one-way street: his collection is not for sale. (And the temptation in these cases is great; take "Minerva": one of the most monumental and heroic female figures by Rembrandt in private hands. If she were to go on the market today, her starting price would begin at $80–100 million.) This means it’s not only and not entirely about the money; it’s also about love for those Dutch masters, for that time, for painting, and for art.
I have the Getty Museum right nearby, with its huge collections and resources, and just an hour's drive away is the Norton Simon Museum with its more intimate atmosphere, so suitable for a Rembrandt exhibition... (And the museum could have boasted its own "Rembrandts" as part of the exhibition.) But the choice fell on the Norton Museum in Florida. It’s good that we happened to be there. But it’s interesting: why was this specific museum chosen?
The Norton Museum is one of the most prestigious art museums in South Florida. The choice fell on it because the museum has the necessary level of security, climate control, and exhibition space to house exhibits of this caliber. Additionally, this region (Palm Beach) is famous for its high concentration of art lovers and patrons.
I never thought I’d say thank you to the wealthy residents of Florida, but here it is: "Thank you for the money that went into organizing such an exhibition. Seeing 17th-century paintings 'live,' so to speak, is a stroke of luck; seeing Rembrandt’s paintings in one collection is happiness."
After all, organizing such exhibitions costs millions of dollars (insurance, transportation, security). I found the specific people who provided the money. The main financial support was provided by: Kenneth Griffin (billionaire and philanthropist through Griffin Catalyst); John Paulson (investor) and his spouse, Alina de Almeida; The Lauder and Peterffy families and other private donors, as well as state grants from Florida and Palm Beach County.
Lena recently went to the exhibition for the second time, while Oleksandra and I have been back home in California, in our native Los Angeles, for about a month now.
To the wealthy of Los Angeles—respected millionaires and billionaires—couldn’t you sponsor "The Leiden Collection"?
I want to visit the exhibition one more time so much...
P.S.
Dr. Thomas S. Kaplan about The Rembrandt House Museum. (Listen, I really liked his words. Just a little over three minutes.)
I didn’t make up the facts for the story. On the internet, there is the official website "The Leiden Collection," with catalogs and high-quality reproductions of all the paintings in the collection: Thomas Kaplan made his collection as transparent as possible. They have an online catalog where the provenance (ownership history) of each painting is described.
Thomas Kaplan, Wikipedia:
The Leiden Collection, Wikipedia:
Sotheby’s and Christie’s publish auction results. Thomas Kaplan is an open person regarding information about the collection. He has given major interviews to The New York Times and The Art Newspaper and has spoken at the openings of exhibitions at the Louvre and the Hermitage. Information about the sponsors (Griffin, Paulson) and the composition of the specific exhibition in Florida can be found in the archives of the Norton Museum of Art.
For the memory. Girls, thank you!
December, 2025.
P.P.S.
Stories from the "Boca Raton" series.
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