The Fogg's Find

With major Rembrandts bringing up to $4,448 per sq. in. at public auction, the odds against finding one at bargain-basement prices is--well--something like the nth power of a googolplex. But the bare possibility can turn the most level-headed curator into a creature half Hawkshaw, half Walter Mitty. Such was the spine-tingling predicament of Harvard's Fine Arts Chairman Seymour Slive. On a busman's holiday to Los Angeles, he had been casually shown an unsigned 17th century oil sketch, The Head of Christ, at the Paul Kantor Gallery. The glimpse proved unforgettable. Recalls Slive: "The left side of the face looks almost like a death's head. Yet the right side is tender. The eyes looked out and yet inward."

Returning across the country on a camping trip with his wife and three children, Slive was haunted by the picture: "I know it "sounds corny, but I honestly had visions of that painting in the campfires." Back in Cambridge, he had the oil sketch shipped to him for closer inspection. Fogg Art Museum colleagues, including Jakob Rosenberg, scrutinized it and agreed on its authenticity. Experts evaluated it as high as $400,000. To make finally certain, Slive strung the painting around his neck in a bag and flew off to Holland. "I felt just like James Bond," confesses Slive. The concurrence of the six leading Dutch Rembrandt scholars made the sleuthing worthwhile. Boston Businessman William A. Coolidge agreed to finance the purchase, and this week Harvard's Fogg Museum is proudly announcing its newest acquisition, the first and only Rembrandt oil to enter the collection. The purchase price: a relatively modest $36,000.

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