Billionaire collector and conservationist Thomas Kaplan has announced plans to sell ‘Young Lion Resting’, a rare Rembrandt drawing, to support wildlife conservation initiatives.
The work, currently on view at Amsterdam’s H’ART Museum, is expected to fetch a record-breaking sum for a drawing when it goes to auction next year. Kaplan, a prominent collector of 17th-century Dutch art, says his commitment to protecting endangered species eclipses even his passion for Rembrandt. “Wildlife conservation is the one passion I have which surpasses Rembrandt—and I want to attract more people to that cause,” Kaplan said.
Young Lion Resting (1638–42) is part of a small, celebrated group of lion studies Rembrandt created in the late 1630s. The drawing, rendered in a striking three-quarter profile, shows the artist’s deft ability to capture physical form and the animal’s inner life. Rembrandt emphasised the lion’s eyes with assured, dark strokes and used delicate grey washes to draw the viewer’s attention to the head and forequarters.
Two related studies depicting the same lion from side views are housed in the British Museum. While those drawings feature elegant, fluid lines to define the animal’s body, Young Lion Resting—owned by Kaplan’s Leiden Collection—displays more deliberate contouring, with subtle adjustments around the forepaws that reveal Rembrandt’s evolving study of the creature.
The drawing highlights Kaplan’s exhibition at the H’ART Museum, formerly the Hermitage Amsterdam. The institution rebranded and became independent after severing its relationship with the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The forthcoming sale of Young Lion Resting will be a major event. Kaplan’s deep love of art history and his mission to protect the world’s dwindling population of big cats is a noble cause.
Rembrandt van Rijn: Master of Light and Shadow
Born in Leiden in 1606, Rembrandt van Rijn emerged as one of history’s most profound visual storytellers, a painter whose mastery of chiaroscuro and raw humanity redefined art. Apprenticed early, he swiftly surpassed his teachers, relocating to Amsterdam in 1631, where his portraits captivated the city’s elite.
His life was a paradox of brilliance and turmoil. The 1642 masterpiece The Night Watch cemented his genius, yet personal tragedies—the death of his wife Saskia, financial ruin, and the quiet later years marked by introspection—shaped his deepening artistry. Bankrupt but unbroken, he produced haunting self-portraits, biblical scenes, and etchings of unmatched emotional depth.
Rembrandt died in 1669, leaving a body of work that transcended time, not merely as a chronicler of faces but a poet of the soul. His work crosses centuries, reminding us that light is most vivid when it emerges from darkness.