From attic to auction: A Rembrandt painting sells for $1.4 million in Maine

(NBC) – A 17th-century Rembrandt painting found in an attic in Maine fetched $1.4 million in a record-breaking sale, auctioneers said Wednesday.

“Portrait of a Girl” went up for grabs during Thomaston Place Auction Galleries’ annual Summer Grandeur sale and three phone bidders aggressively sought the work that ultimately ended in the hands of an unnamed European collector on Aug. 24. It was a record sale for the New England auction house, which called it a “once-in-a-lifetime discovery.”

“Out of all the phone bids I’ve handled, I never imagined I’d help close a deal for over a million dollars,” Zebulon Casperson, representing the winning European bidder, said in a statement released by the gallery. “It feels like a shared victory.”