00:00During a routine visit to a home in Maine, an appraiser found a portrait sitting among
00:05old paintings in the attic. It showed a young girl in a white cap. Then he turned it over.
00:10A small paper label was attached to the back. He read the name on it, looked at the portrait again,
00:16and stopped. If that label was right, the family might have been living beneath a fortune without
00:21even knowing it. But before we start smash the like button and make sure to subscribe if you
00:26haven't, and hit that notification bell so that you won't miss any new stories.
00:31The visit had begun like many others in Kaja Vailu's working life. In 2024, he had gone to a
00:38private estate in Camden, Maine, to look through its belongings and assess what could be offered
00:42for sale. Vailu had founded Thomaston Place Auction Galleries. House calls took him into homes filled
00:49with furniture, antiques, and pictures whose owners often needed help understanding what they had.
00:54This house offered plenty to examine, but the object that would command the most attention
00:59was upstairs, among stacks of artwork in the attic. The portrait showed a young girl against a dark
01:05background. She wore a black dress, a white ruffled collar, and a white cap. Light caught her face while
01:12much of the surrounding picture remained in shadow. There was something about the way that face had been
01:17painted that held Vailu's attention. The picture had survived in unusually good condition. Its surface was
01:23painted on an oak panel, and a carved gold frame surrounded it. There was no visible signature
01:28supplying an easy answer about its maker. Vailu turned the frame around. The paper on the back
01:34carried the name of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It referred to a loan for an exhibition in 1970
01:40and named a lender from Camden, Carrie Bobu Bach. The Camden address mattered. It placed the named
01:47lender in the same town where the portrait had resurfaced. The label provided a name to follow
01:52through older records, giving Vailu something more specific to work with than the painting's appearance
01:57alone. An old portrait in an attic now had a connection to a major museum. The date reached back
02:03more than half a century. Then came the name entered for the artist, Rembrandt. Vailu had already
02:10recognized a familiar style in the painted face. The label strengthened his belief that he was holding
02:16a work by one of history's best known artists. The discovery raised an immediate question. How had a
02:23portrait carrying that name ended up stored among other pictures in a main attic? The surviving label
02:29offered part of its history, but the years that followed were much harder to trace. The painting
02:34had remained in private hands, away from the kind of regular attention a museum display could bring.
02:40Now it was going to be seen again. At the auction house, the portrait became a lot in the upcoming
02:46summer grandeur sale. Its photograph would reach people far beyond the home where it had been found.
02:52Then came a detail that seemed surprisingly modest. The estimate was $10,000 to $15,000.
02:59For most people, that was a substantial amount of money. Beside the name on the old label though,
03:04it raised a different question. Why wasn't the auction house presenting it as a confirmed
03:09masterpiece? The answer was in the catalog's wording. The painting was listed as after Rembrandt.
03:15In plain language, it was being offered as a work made in his style, or based on his work,
03:20without a guarantee that he had painted it himself. Vailu believed in the portrait. The sale listing
03:26still left buyers to make their own judgment. He also had a practical reason for setting modest
03:31estimates. As he later explained, lower estimates helped attract interest. They encouraged people
03:37to consider a lot and decide what it was worth to them. The estimate would bring buyers to the sale.
03:43Their offers would determine where the price ended. With the listing published, potential buyers began
03:48weighing the portrait against that cautious estimate. A buyer could pay for the picture exactly as it was
03:54offered. Or a buyer could see the possibility of something more, knowing that further research
03:59might never support that hope. Some interested collectors sought advice before deciding how far
04:05to go. One turned to Rembrandt scholar Gary Schwartz. Schwartz saw reason for optimism,
04:10and encouraged the potential buyer to pursue it. He noticed a strong resemblance to a recognized
04:16Rembrandt portrait in Vienna, also showing a young woman in a white cap. There was another clue beyond
04:22that resemblance. According to Schwartz, the main picture had appeared in a catalog of Rembrandt's
04:28paintings published in 1969. It was described there as belonging to a private collector in Philadelphia.
04:35The portrait had a place in the written record before the date on its museum label. But that
04:41older entry included a reservation. Its attribution to Rembrandt was considered doubtful. The same record
04:48that helped recover the painting's history also showed how long the question about its maker had
04:53remained open. Another prospective buyer consulted art historian Volker Maynooth. He was less convinced.
05:00He knew the picture from a poor black-and-white reproduction in that older catalog, and leaned
05:05toward doubt. Neither scholar had settled the question by examining the original painting in person.
05:11Yet their different reactions showed why the same object could draw very different bids. To one
05:17collector, the uncertainty might be a reason to stop. To another, it might be the reason to take a
05:23closer look. The portrait reached the auction with that tension intact. On August 24th,
05:28Vea stood at the sale in Thomaston. The attic visit was behind him. The picture he had found was now
05:35in
05:35front of an audience of potential buyers. Other items had already been selling for hours. Furniture,
05:41art, and antiques had passed through the auction. Eventually, portrait of a girl reached the podium.
05:47Much of the interest came from people who were not sitting in the room. Nine auction house staff members
05:53were attending the phones, connecting bidders to the sale. Several of those buyers were in Europe.
05:59Each caller relied on the person holding the phone to follow the bidding and relay the next decision.
06:04The portrait's estimate was still $10,000 to $15,000. The bids carried it beyond that range,
06:11then beyond the level at which the estimate offered much guidance at all. As the price moved into six
06:17figures, buying the picture meant committing a sum far larger than the catalog had suggested.
06:22A bidder could no longer stay in merely by adding a little to the expected price. Every new offer
06:28raised what the next person would have to pay. For Valu, the interest was becoming visible in a way it
06:34never could have been during the house call. The portrait he had pulled from storage was drawing
06:39competing offers from people far beyond Maine. The contest continued through the phone lines.
06:44Some bidders reached their limit and dropped out. Others stayed involved. As the price climbed,
06:51the group still willing to buy, the painting grew smaller. At $900,000, three telephone bidders remained.
06:59The bidding had reached 60 times the top of the estimate. Even there, three people were still
07:04competing to own the portrait. The bidding approached a million dollars, then only two remained. At one of the
07:10phones, Zebulon Kaspersson was representing a collector still in the running. His job was to relay
07:16each offer, follow the auctioneer, and wait for the next instruction from his client. For the two buyers
07:21still involved, the remaining decision was immediate. Continue, or allow the other bidder to take the
07:27portrait. The amount passed the million dollar mark. Valu was now taking bids above a million dollars for
07:33the unsigned portrait from Camden. The paper label that had caught his attention was still attached to
07:38its back. The competition had come down to which of those last two callers would go further. The final
07:44winning bid reached $1,175,000. With the auction's buyer's premium added, the total came to $1,410,000.
07:54A private European collector had won. The estimate had been 10,000 to 15,000. The final total was more
08:00than
08:0090 times the upper figure. Kaspersson had represented the winning collector. Afterward,
08:06he explained that he had never imagined helping close a sale above a million dollars. He described
08:11the result as a shared achievement for the people who had helped bring the painting to auction.
08:16For Valu, the discovery had traveled from a routine house call to one of the most remarkable
08:21sales his gallery had handled. The identity of the buyer remained private, as did that of the seller.
08:26What people could see was the portrait itself, the old label, and the extraordinary result.
08:32The question of who had painted it was still open at the time of the sale. The auction had
08:37nevertheless given this long-stored picture, a new owner, and an entirely different place in the
08:42world. Its image spread far beyond the attic where Valu had found it. People who would never visit that
08:48house could now look at the girl in the white cap and the slip of paper behind her. The little
08:53label
08:53had survived the years with the painting. When Valu turned the frame around, he had found a reason
08:58to stop and look more closely. By the time the bidding ended, that same portrait had drawn offers
09:03from collectors willing to spend a fortune to take it home. The face in the portrait was the same.
09:10So was the little label on the back. But the painting that had been stored in a main attic
09:14had just sold for $1,410,000.
