A painting representing a biblical scene was purchased by the Museum of Portimão at auction in 2006 for €780.
A researcher says it's a Rembrandt but the museum is not so sure.
Ace art investigator José Pacheco is convinced that the picture was acquired at auction by Manuel Teixeira Gomes when ambassador to the Court of St James’ and that the painting is of the C17th Dutch school, is by Rembrandt or from his studio.
The director of Portimão Museum doubts that it is an original picture from the Dutch painter but is having the claim and the picture checked out at the highest level.
The small painting was purchased by the Museum of Portimão nine years ago and is part of a collection of twenty paintings that belonged to Manuel Teixeira Gomes, the writer and former President of the Republic of Portugal from 1923 to 1925, who was born in the city in 1860.
The picture is titled "Lady, elder and child" and is attributed to the French School of the C19th, but the investigator José Pacheco said that there is an exact twin of this painting in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London which is an original Rembrandt, although with a different title.
Pacheco is convinced that the picture was acquired by Manuel Teixeira Gomes where he was ambassador in London and that it is a Rembrandt, so similar is it to the V&A’s "Abraham expelling Hagar and Ishmael," dated 1640.
Pacheco, from the Instituto Superior Manuel Teixeira Gomes in Portimão, said the paintings are very similar, have the same dimensions and that there is a good chance that the picture bought by Manuel Teixeira Gomes was a lost Rembrandt depicting the same scene, or a contemporary copy made by a student in his workshop.
The director of the Museum of Portimão, José Gameiro, has reservations about the authenticity of the picture, which must be confirmed by Rembrandt Commission in Holland, but he is taking the matter further and is in contact with other European museums and the V&A.
"Rembrandt was systematically and widely copied, by students and often centuries later. He may even have been one of the most copied artists in the world," says Gameiro, keen to play down this possible 'sleeper'.
