A REMBRANDT ROARS

A rare drawing by one of the world’s most famous artists set the auction world alight when it came up for sale at Sotheby's in New York, with proceeds going to fund crucial big cat conservation projects, reports Caroline Wheater

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Picture the scene as Dutch artist Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn studies his subject – probably a male Barbary lion from North Africa – while visiting an Amsterdam fair or menagerie.

The artist observes the rare beast from a safe distance as it gazes out, eyes bright, face alert, paws crossed, and with just a few strokes of black chalk he dashes off Young Lion Resting. Perhaps he makes a few more drawings before going to a nearby tavern to drink some beer, blissfully unaware that, one day, the small sketch that captured a moment in the young lion’s life will make more money than he’s ever dreamed of.

Rembrandt drew Young Lion Resting some time between 1638-42 when he was in his thirties and at the height of his powers. He might have been recording the animal for a future painting or etching, or maybe he was sketching for the pure joy of it. Whatever the case, the artist was already a leading portraitist, producing uniquely lifelike and detailed paintings of wealthy sitters, such as Philips Lucasz, an official of the Dutch East India Company, and Aechje Claesdr, the widow of a Rotterdam brewer, both of whom you can see in The National Gallery’s Rembrandt Room in London. In comparison, the lion is ‘just’ a drawing, but it lacks none of Rembrandt’s perception and empathy.