Rembrandt’s Lion Sketch to Fund Wildlife Conservation
- Editor OGN Daily
- Apr 24
- 2 min read
Young Lion Resting is among dozens of Dutch Golden Age artworks currently on view at the H’ART Museum in Amsterdam.
A new exhibition in Amsterdam brings together 75 paintings from the Leiden Collection, a stunning assortment of art from the Dutch Golden Age. Highlights of the show include 18 artworks by Rembrandt van Rijn, including a drawing of a lion that will be sold to fund wildlife conservation efforts.
The H’ART Museum’s From Rembrandt to Vermeer, Masterpieces From the Leiden Collection marks the first time that so many works from the Leiden Collection - including all 18 of its Rembrandts - have been publicly displayed in the Netherlands. The collection is named after the city of Rembrandt’s birth.
Owned by collectors Thomas and Daphne Kaplan, the more than 200 paintings and drawings represent one of the world’s largest private collections of 17th-century Dutch art, reports Smithsonian Magazine.
Young Lion Resting (1638-42), which is now on display at the H’ART, depicts a big cat lying down, wearing a leash around its neck. Its front paws are crossed, and its wide eyes face forward. Rembrandt likely observed the lion at an Amsterdam menagerie - a traveling exhibition of animals brought from North Africa to the Netherlands on trading ships of the Dutch East India Company.
The sketch was the first Rembrandt work Kaplan purchased. Its subject is especially significant to the collector, who co-founded Panthera, an organization dedicated to preserving seven species of big cats, in 2006. Next year, he plans to sell Young Lion Resting at auction and donate the proceeds to the organization.
“Wildlife conservation is the one passion I have which surpasses Rembrandt - and I want to attract more people to that cause,” he told The Art Newspaper.
