Painting that ‘mysteriously’ ended up in dusty attic turns out to be a $1.4 million Rembrandt

Rembrandt's oak panel painting "Portrait of a Girl" is mounted in a hand-carved gold Dutch frame. An art appraiser found it in a house's attic.

A Rembrandt discovered in an attic sold for $1.4 million. The 17th century painting, “Portrait of a Girl,” by Dutch artist Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was discovered by art appraiser and auctioneer Kaja Veilleux in an attic in an estate in Camden, Maine. A label on the back of the frame noted that it was loaned to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for an exhibition in 1970.

This photo shows a 17th-century painting, “Portrait of a Girl,” by the Dutch artist Rembrandt. (AP)

“On house calls, we often go in blind, not knowing what we’ll find,” said Veilleux, from Thomaston Place Auction Galleries. “The home was filled with wonderful pieces but it was in the attic, among stacks of art, that we found this remarkable portrait.”

The painting had been in private family ownership since the 1920s, and the painting stayed with the family after being displayed in Philadelphia, the business said. The owner was not identified.

As to how it ended up in the attic, that, too, was a mystery.

Rembrandt, born in 1606, was a prolific artist who focused on a variety of subjects, from portraits to landscapes to historical and biblical scenes.

“Portrait of a Girl” was painted on an oak panel and mounted in a hand-carved gold Dutch frame, said Veilleux.

An auction by Thomaston Place Auction Galleries yielded a fierce competition on August 24, he said. In the end, a European collector paid $1.41 million for the painting.

Last year, a seemingly unassuming painting, which a woman bought for $4 after finding it amid a stack of frames, turned out to be a painting by Needham-born artist N.C. Wyeth. It was later auctioned off for $1,91,000.

Titled Ramona, the painting was one of four commissioned from Little, Brown, and Co. for the 1939 edition of Helen Hunt Jackson's novel of the same name.