A work on paper by Rembrandt van Rijn, depicting a lion and dated between 1638 and 1642, could set a new record of value at auction in the old master drawing segment.
The sheet, titled Young Lion Resting, will be auctioned in 2025 by its current owner, Thomas Kaplan, a well-known American collector and founder of the Leiden Collection.
The entire proceeds from the sale will be allocated to conservation projects for big cats, through its environmental foundation Panthera.
Currently on display at the H’ART Museum in Amsterdam in the exhibition From Rembrandt to Vermeer: Masterpieces from the Leiden Collection (ongoing until August 24, 2025), the drawing was acquired by Kaplan in 2005 through the dealer Otto Naumann.
The work comes from a French private collection dating back at least to the 18th century, but its earlier history remains partly undocumented.
According to Kaplan’s own statements, the auction house’s estimate could exceed “multiples of tens of millions” of dollars. An ambitious valuation, but not unrealistic, considering that the current record for a work on paper is held by Head of a Young Apostle by Raphael, sold by Sotheby’s in 2012 for 29.7 million pounds (about 48 million dollars at the exchange rate of the time).
The drawing by Rembrandt at the auction
The drawing depicts a lion tied with a leash, probably observed from life in a menagerie or during a fair in Amsterdam. The presence of the animal in the Netherlands in the 17th century can be attributed to the activity of the Dutch East India Company, which occasionally transported exotic specimens from North Africa.
Rembrandt, who at the time was about 30 years old, might have created this study to use it in subsequent representations of Saint Jerome, traditionally accompanied by a lion.
An exhibition currently in Amsterdam
The Leiden Collection, one of the largest private collections of Dutch painting from the Golden Age, includes works by Gerard ter Borch, Gerrit Dou, Carel Fabritius, Frans Hals, Jan Lievens, Frans van Mieris, and Jan Steen, many of whom are connected to the Leiden School.
The absolute masterpiece of the exhibition, however, is Young Woman Seated at a Virginal (1670–75) by Johannes Vermeer, acquired by Kaplan in 2008. It is the only Vermeer still in private hands, out of a total of 37 paintings attributed with certainty to the master of Delft.
After Amsterdam, the exhibition will be transferred to the United States, at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, where it will be open to visitors from October 25, 2025, to March 29, 2026.
With this operation, art and philanthropy meet in a context where the market for ancient art continues to demonstrate solidity, especially for rare works with a strong cultural narrative and a charitable destination. Next year could therefore mark a new milestone for ancient drawing, both in economic and symbolic terms.
As expert in digital marketing, Amelia began working in the fintech sector in 2014 after writing her thesis on Bitcoin technology. Previously author for several international crypto-related magazines and CMO at Eidoo. She is now the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Cryptonomist and Econique.
She is also a marketing teacher at Digital Coach in Milan and she published a book about NFTs for the Italian publishing house Mondadori, while she is also helping artists and company to entering in the sector. As advisor, Amelia is also involved in metaverse-related project such as The Nemesis and OVER.
