The Dutch government, in association with the Rembrandt Association and the Rijksmuseum, has controversially agreed to pay a staggering €175 million ($198 million) for a painting by Rembrandt van Rijn to keep the work in the country.
The picture, a three-quarter-length self-portrait of the Dutch artist, has been in private hands for centuries, passing from the collections of King George IV to the French Rothschild family, which acquired the work in 1844. It later came to the children of Élie de Rothschild, the patriarch of the French branch of the banking and art-collecting family, when he died in 2007.
Read more at:
The Netherlands Makes a Controversial Decision to Buy a Prized Rembrandt for a Whopping $198 Million | Artnet News