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It was in the winter of 2016 that Jan Six, a Dutch art dealer based in Amsterdam, made a discovery that would upend his life. He was leafing through a Christie’s catalog when he spotted a painting featuring a young man wearing a dazed look, a lace collar and a proto-Led Zeppelin coif. Christie’s had labeled it a painting by one of Rembrandt’s followers, but Mr. Six knew it was by the Dutch master himself.
When Mr. Six later revealed his discovery to the world, he was met with popular enthusiasm. And his book on the painting, “Rembrandt’s Portrait of a Young Gentleman,” was an instant best seller in Dutch.
Soon, however, accusations that he was a cheat would reverberate around the international art world.
Today on The Sunday Read, a look at Mr. Six’s discovery of the first new Rembrandt painting in over four decades, and the fallout from finding it.
Additional production for The Sunday Read was contributed by Emma Kehlbeck, Parin Behrooz, Carson Leigh Brown, Anna Diamond, Elena Hecht, Desiree Ibekwe, Tanya Perez, Kelly Rogers, Margaret Willison and Kate Winslett. Special thanks to Mike Benoist, Sam Dolnick, Laura Kim, Julia Simon, Lisa Tobin, Blake Wilson and Ryan Wegner.