Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer

…three years later, when Rembrandt’s Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer was purchased by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art for $2.3 million.

…of these paintings, the famous Aristotle with a Bust of Homer, without knowing its subject, it must surely have been mainly Rembrandt’s fame that attracted him. Van Hoogstraten in his book on painting refers to “name-buyers,” a phenomenon that apparently grew parallel to the emergence of the art lover. Once…