Rembrandt Drawing Sells for Record $17.86 Million at Sotheby's

A rare Rembrandt drawing, Young Lion Resting, sold for $17.86 million at Sotheby's New York, setting a record for the most expensive drawing by the artist ever sold at auction. The work on paper, created nearly four centuries ago when Rembrandt was in his early thirties, was part of the Leiden Collection, a major private collection of 17th-century Dutch and Flemish art owned by Thomas S. and Daphne Recanati Kaplan. The drawing depicts a lion in a three-quarter view, with a thin leash suggesting it was observed from life, possibly at a fair or public event in 17th-century Europe. Only six Rembrandt lion drawings are known, held by institutions such as the British Museum, the Louvre, the Rijksmuseum, and the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Proceeds from the sale will benefit Panthera, an international organization dedicated to protecting wild cat species, founded by Alan Rabinowitz and Thomas S. Kaplan, and currently chaired by Jon Ayers, co-owner of the drawing. The auction took place during Sotheby's Master Works on Paper from Five Centuries sale, with the winning bid coming from a buyer in the room after phone and in-room bidding.