09/26/2026
The painting: Rembrandt van Rijn, The Unconscious Patient (An Allegory of the Sense of Smell), about 1624–25. He was 18.
It is one of five small panels he painted as a teenager on the five senses:
Sight — A Pedlar Selling Spectacles
Hearing — Three Singers
Smell — Unconscious Patient ← this one
Touch — Stone Operation
Taste — still missing
Smell is the only one in the series with his monogram: RHF (Rembrandt Harmenszoon fecit — “Rembrandt, son of Harmen, made this”). After cleaning, that mark showed up.
What it shows: A young man has fainted. An older woman holds a cloth (smelling salts) to his nose. A barber-surgeon looks on. Smell as revival. Small panel — roughly 8½ × 7 inches originally, later enlarged and stuck in a Victorian frame.
How Nye got it: House call, Essex County / Teaneck-area family. Parents gone. Three brothers (the Landaus) were clearing the house. The picture was in the basement, under a ping-pong / pool table, varnish cracked, paint loss, “remarkably unremarkable.”
Catalog: Continental School, 19th C., appears unsigned. Estimate: $500–$800. Lot 216. Sale date: September 22, 2015.
The room: Almost no one asked for extra photos.
Bidding opened at $250. Then two European phones went to war. Hammer: $870,000. With premium: about $1.1 million. Paris dealers Talabardon & Gautier won. The underbidder told Nye: “You just sold a Rembrandt. I’ve been looking for this my whole professional life.” The room applauded.
