![\"Jeremy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/https:\/\/d1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net\/production\/d3f77198-ce1d-4244-a8ec-834e729c6e08.jpg\")
Jeremy Irons: \u2018Fame doesn\u2019t really have any value, but it can help raise awareness of certain causes\u2019 \u00a9 Carolina Porsche<\/p>\nNearly 400 years ago, Rembrandt van Rijn rushed to see the rare appearance of a young lion in the Netherlands. This week the artist\u2019s deft, arresting sketch is set to make at least $15mn for a charity whose mission is to protect the world\u2019s 40 species of wild cats.<\/p>\n
\u201cYoung Lion Resting\u201d (c1638-42) is co-owned by the Franco-American collector and metals billionaire Thomas Kaplan and by Jon Ayers, a former animal healthcare industry leader. They are selling their Rembrandt to mark the 20th anniversary of the charity Panthera, co-founded by Kaplan in 2006 and of which Ayers has been chair since 2021.<\/p>\n
Kaplan describes wildcats as \u201cthe linchpin of most ecosystems, the umbrella species\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009for the flora and fauna to stay in balance, they need an apex predator to survive\u201d. Threats include not having enough land to roam \u2014 fragmented by human activity including road building and agriculture \u2014 while poaching for their skins and meat is one of the biggest risks to the species.<\/p>\n
His powers of persuasion are evident in Panthera\u2019s \u201cConservation Council\u201d of advocates, founded in 2017 and originally co-chaired by the actors Glenn Close and Jane Alexander. Today, its members include the actor Jeremy Irons, musician Shania Twain, former CIA director-general David Petraeus, and investor Wendi Deng Murdoch.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kaplan describes himself as \u201ccompletely unembarrassed\u201d to pull favours from them. \u201cThere are things I wouldn\u2019t ask for personally or professionally, but I have zero inhibition when it comes to [Panthera],\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Irons, who voiced Scar in the The Lion King\u00a0(1994), has turned those velvety, villainous tones to narrate some of Panthera\u2019s videos, including a promotional piece for Sotheby\u2019s sale of the Rembrandt.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jeremy Irons: \u2018Fame doesn\u2019t really have any value, but it can help raise awareness of certain causes\u2019 \u00a9 Carolina Porsche<\/p>\n
The actor confesses to me that he is \u201ca dog person\u201d domestically, but says he has grown \u201cincreasingly passionate\u201d about Panthera\u2019s missions. \u201cSeeing those large cats in the wild, how they protect their young is extraordinary. I have learnt [through Kaplan] how under threat they are\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009Fame doesn\u2019t really have any value, but it can help raise awareness of certain causes.\u201d<\/p>\n
He talks too about the long fascination with lions throughout the world. \u201cThere are ancient cave markings of lions [including at Chauvet and Lascaux], lions guarded Nebuchadnezzar\u2019s gates of Babylon, in Egypt you have the Sphinx of Giza, and stone lions were the guardians of imperial tombs in China.\u201d In Europe, he says, \u201cthe lion was a symbol of strength, in tapestries and flags.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
This leads us to Rembrandt\u2019s young lion, which Irons acknowledges is not a Scar-like king of the savannah \u2014 \u201che is on a lead for a start\u201d \u2014 but has, he says \u201ca depth of feeling and dignity, particularly around the eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gregory Rubinstein, Sotheby\u2019s head of Old Master drawings, explains the artist\u2019s technical skills that created such a mix. \u201cWhere there\u2019s movement, particularly in the left paw where he\u2019s sketched two different positions, Rembrandt uses long, rapid, fluid strokes. For the face, these are smaller and more precise, which gives a sense of fixed stillness.\u201d The overall effect, he says, is \u201ca feeling that even this young lion could pounce with real menace.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clearly drawn from life, Rubinstein notes how rare it was to have seen a lion in 17th-century Europe. The best guess from Sotheby\u2019s research is that Rembrandt saw such animals (as well as the elephants he also drew and painted) at one of the continent\u2019s touring fairs. Records show that these were kept in tents or mobile cages, to be viewed by paying customers.<\/p>\n
\u201cRembrandt surely would have grasped such opportunity with great enthusiasm,\u201d Sotheby\u2019s says. And Rubinstein adds that the artist had good cause. \u201cThere are lions in some of his earlier works that didn\u2019t look like they were painted by someone who had seen them. Later on, they really, really work,\u201d he says, citing the etching \u201cSaint Jerome in an Italianate Landscape\u201d (c1653), which features a turning, maned lion behind the reading saint.<\/p>\n
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Rembrandt\u2019s \u2018Saint Jerome in an Italianate Landscape\u2019 (c1653) \u00a9 Alamy<\/p>\n
\u201cYoung Lion Resting\u201d is one of six drawings Rembrandt made of the wildcats, including two lioness sketches in London\u2019s British Museum. Rubinstein confirms that the Sotheby\u2019s work has been requested as a loan to a forthcoming exhibition at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York, which takes Rembrandt\u2019s lions as a launch pad to explore stories of migration and Dutch identity in Amsterdam.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Estimated at $15mn-$20mn, \u201cYoung Lion Resting\u201d could also make art market history this week. The auction record for a Rembrandt drawing was set in 2000, when\u00a0a landscape,\u00a0\u201cThe Bulwark De Rose and the Windmill De Smeerpot\u201d, Amsterdam\u00a0(c1649-52), sold for $3.7mn (now in the Morgan Library & Museum collection). And if the young lion sells within its estimate, it would rank among the top five Old Master drawings ever at auction, topped (in dollar terms) by Raphael\u2019s sublime \u201cHead of a Muse\u201d (c1510-11), which sold for $48mn in 2009.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For Panthera, which Kaplan says now has an annual budget of $30mn, the small drawing would make a big difference. Ongoing projects include buying private land between national parks in Africa, Kaplan says. Other initiatives, such as the Jaguar Corridor, which involves scientists partnering with governments and corporations to create safe passages through Central and South America for wildcats, require long-term investment in areas such as community education, rancher training and the building of predator-proof enclosures.<\/p>\n
\u201cYoung Lion Resting\u201d was the first Rembrandt that Kaplan and his wife Daphne bought, in 2005, for their Leiden collection, which now includes 17 of the artist\u2019s paintings (Ayers bought into the drawing when he became Panthera chair). Kaplan recalls seeing the drawing at the high-end dealership of brothers John and Paul Herring, and while he won\u2019t reveal the price paid, he says that at the time \u201cit was the most expensive work we had ever acquired\u201d. <\/p>\n
Now is not the time for seller\u2019s remorse, though. As Kaplan puts it: \u201cWildlife conservation is the one passion I have which surpasses Rembrandt.\u201d<\/p>\n