ABOVE: Detail from Rembrandt’s The Apostle James the Major, for sale at the Maastricht art fair right now, one of the few Rembrandts to reach the market in the past decade.

There are two Rembrandts for sale at the current TEFAF Maastricht Art Fair (which runs through March 19), quite an oddity considering that there have been only about a dozen Rembrandts put on sale anywhere in the past decade, The Telegraph reports today. The Apostle James the Major (above) is on sale by New York-based Salander-O’Reilly with a price tag of upwards of €32 million, while Dutch dealer Robert Noortman is selling Portrait of a Man in a Red Doublet for around €26 million.

Rembrandts, despite their obvious cachet for collectors, have traditionally had a hard time selling because their enormous value limits the pool of collectors with the cash to buy them, and also because most of the best work is already in public museums, leaving gloomy also-rans like Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyes to the private market. Exchange rates have also shut out all but the richest American collectors, and we have to imagine that the risk of buying something that turns out not to be a real Rembrandt is also giving potential buyers the fantods.

LINK: Telegraph > Art sales: old Master seeks new owner