• 35 rare Rembrandt etchings were rediscovered after nearly 100 years in family storage.
• Experts were stunned by their exceptional condition and art historical importance.
• The prints will go on view at the Stedelijk Museum Zutphen.

A set of 35 rare prints by Rembrandt van Rijn, long forgotten in a family home, have been rediscovered in the Netherlands after nearly a century out of sight.

Kept in a dark safe for decades, the etchings are in exceptional condition. They were acquired in the early 20th century by the grandfather of Charlotte Meyer, who inherited them via her mother. It was only during the 2020 pandemic that she decided to have the collection examined by leading experts from the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam, which confirmed their significance.

“They were completely blow away,” Meyer told the Dutch news outlet Omroep Gelderland. 

Meyer’s grandfather had a connoisseurial eye for art and these instincts are evident in his skill for snapping up top quality Rembrandt prints at bargain prices. These works had long been safely stored away, not resurfacing for decades.

“Nobody was interested in etchings at that time. They were nothing special,” Meyer explained. “We kept them, but nobody really expected anything from them.”

Rembrandt van Rijn, The Pancake Woman (1635). Courtesy of the Collection of Charlotte Meyer.

After seeing the Rembrandt specialists’ reaction, however, she recalled realizing that the prints are likely “worth a lot of money.”

According to the Artnet Price Database, the artist’s 1656 work Arnout Tholinx, Inspector fetched an impressive £3.1 million ($4.1 million) at Christie’s London in December, making it the most expensive Old Masters print to ever sell at auction. Earlier this month, Rembrandt’s chalk study Young Lion Resting set a new record for a work on paper by the artist when it sold for nearly $18 million at Sotheby’s New York.

Meyers’s rediscovered prints will be shown at the Stedelijk Museum Zutphen in a new exhibition, “Rembrandt: From Dark to Light,” alongside more than 70 works by Rembrandt’s predecessors and followers drawn from the museum’s collection and loans from the nearby Museum Henriette Polak, as well as other pieces from Meyer’s collection, which she has been expanding since finding the prints.

Highlights of the exhibition will include an interactive display inviting visitors to learn more about Rembrandt’s etching technique and a multi-sensory experience allowing them to have a whiff of 17th-century Amsterdam.

“Rembrandt: From Dark to Light” will be on view from March 21 through June 14, 2026 at the Stedelijk Museum Zutphen, Zutphen, Netherlands.