The Dutch government has pledged to help the Rijksmuseum acquire a pair of rare, full-length Rembrandt portraits from the French businessman Éric de Rothschild for €160m, a record price for a Western museum. Rembrandt’s 1634 wedding portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit have been in the collection of the Rothschild family in France since the 19th century.
The Dutch culture ministry announced on 21 September that the state and the Amsterdam museum plan to pay €80m each to secure the paintings for public ownership in the Netherlands. In an interview with BNR Nieuwsradio the culture minister Jet Bussemaker said it would be “very undesirable” if they were sold to “a rich oil state”.
The news follows speculation that the Rijksmuseum would jointly acquire the works with the Musée du Louvre in Paris. Earlier in September the president-director of the Louvre, Jean-Luc Martinez, told the French TV channel BFM Business that he was in contact with the director of the Rijksmuseum, Wim Pijbes, and that negotiations were under way between the Dutch and French culture ministries to “ensure that two works by a European genius of the 17th-century remain in Europe in quite an original way, in shared ownership”.
However, after the Dutch government pledged €80m, the Rijksmuseum said in a statement that it would “do all in its power” to raise the funds to acquire both portraits: “During the past few weeks, the Rijksmuseum has spoken with various private collectors.” Spokeswomen from the Louvre and the Rijksmuseum declined to say whether or not the joint acquisition was still under discussion.
According to French press reports, the Rothschilds initially approached the Louvre in 2013 before applying for an export licence. Under French law, the state can block the export of works of art deemed to be “national treasures” for 30 months to allow a public institution to purchase them at a market price. The French culture ministry granted Éric de Rothschild an export licence for the Rembrandt paintings earlier this year after consultation with the Louvre. “The acquisition was difficult from a financial point of view,” a museum spokeswoman confirms.