Rijksmuseum reveals painting to be early work by Rembrandt

17th-century Dutch master’s Vision of Zacharias in the Temple to go on display this week

It hung unrecognised on the wall of a private home for decades but now a 17th-century painting has been revealed as a Rembrandt, taking its potential value from thousands to millions of pounds.

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam announced on Monday that it had rediscovered an early biblical scene by the Dutch master that was once thought lost, thanks to hi-tech scanning and two years of expert analysis.

Since the 1960s, Vision of Zacharias in the Temple, dated 1633, had been attributed to Rembrandt’s “workshop”, meaning it was believed to have been created by a lesser-known artist such as Jan Lievens or Salomon Koninck.

But in fact it was a work of the old master, the Dutch museum announced, as it prepared to exhibit the painting this week. Taco Dibbits, the general director of the Rijksmuseum, said it was approached several years ago by a couple who had inherited a modest-looking painting from their father.

“It was really very dark,” Dibbits said. “But when it had been restored, I came in to see it and it really looked like the gold was bursting off it – which, of course, is remarkable because he painted with yellow and not with gold. This is what makes the artist a true artist … It is classic Rembrandt.”

The painting depicts the biblical story of the high priest Zacharias (also known as Zechariah), who is visited by the archangel Gabriel and told that he and his wife – despite their advanced age – will have a son, John, later John the Baptist. It does not show an angel, only a bright light in one corner and the priest’s face in disbelief.

Jonathan Bikker, a curator of 17th-century Dutch painting at the Rijksmuseum and the author of an academic article in the Burlington magazine about the attribution, said the find was extraordinary. He and the article’s co-author, Petria Noble, argue that the painting was discredited in 1969 by the scholar Horst Gerson and later researchers in the Rembrandt Research Project on the basis of lower-resolution photographs rather than an examination of the work itself.

The Rijksmuseum, however, matched its paint pigments to works by Rembrandt van Rijn from the same period. Macro X-ray fluorescence scans showed typical changes in composition, and an analysis of the wooden panel also dated the painting to 1633.

The owners, who have asked to remain anonymous but are understood to be European, said their father had bought it from the Amsterdam art dealer P de Boer in 1961.

“It was as if there was a grey veil over the painting,” said Bikker. “They had already started with the conservation treatment, and they just wanted to know who it was by so their restorer could look at other paintings. If it was by Jan Lievens, he could look at Jan Lievens.”

They did not dare believe that it could really be by a young Rembrandt, he added.

“The couple who owns it brought it here and they were making jokes,” he said. “‘Look how big that signature is. It has to be by Rembrandt! It says Rembrandt in big letters!’ But it was also a surprise for them that it was a real Rembrandt, because as soon as the father had bought it, it had been de-attributed.”

Although the Rijksmuseum would not comment on the value, “workshop of Rembrandt” paintings are typically worth tens or hundreds of thousands of euros. By contrast, the Rijksmuseum recently bought a Rembrandt for €175m (£153m). With the addition of Vision of Zacharias in the Temple, from Wednesday it will show 25 Rembrandts, the largest collection in the world.