PHILADELPHIA   -   During a routine house call to a private estate in Camden, Maine, auctioneer Kaja Veilleux made an unexpected discovery in the property’s attic: A 17th-century painting of a young woman wearing a cap and ruffled collar. “On house calls, we often go in blind, not knowing what we’ll find,” said Veilleux, the founder of Thomaston Place Auction Galleries, in a press release. “The home was filled with wonderful pieces, but it was in the attic, among stacks of art, that we found this remarkable portrait.”  The artwork appeared to have been painted in the style of Dutch master Rembrandt and a label on the frame’s reverse claimed it was by him. The paper slip, which appears to have been issued by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, also suggested the painting was loaned to the museum in 1970. Very little is known about the portrait, however, and it is not widely recognized by scholars as part of Rembrandt’s oeuvre. While the auction house told CNN it believes the label to be genuine, the Philadelphia Museum of Art was unable to confirm whether it had ever borrowed the portrait. (A museum spokesperson added, via email, that “generally… a slip or label doesn’t necessarily verify a work of art — certainly more work would be required.”) Thomaston Place would not disclose whether it consulted a Rembrandt expert about the attribution, but it proceeded to list the painting with an estimate of just $10,000 to $15,000. The portrait was described in sale materials as “After Rembrandt,” terminology denoting that a painting is believed to be a copy of — or was modeled on — a known artist’s style, and is not an autograph work. But not everyone, it seems, was so sure.

After an opening offer of $32,500, more than double the high estimate, bidding at an auction last Saturday soon skyrocketed into six figures. Almost a dozen potential suitors, some of whom joined via phone from Europe, participated in the sale, according to Thomaston Place. Three telephone bidders remained until $900,000, before the last two pushed the final sale price up to $1.41 million. The auction house believes this to be the highest sum ever paid for an artwork at a Maine auction. And the figure suggests that several collectors (including the winning bidder, identified only as a “private European collector”) believe there is enough chance that it is a genuine Rembrandt to be worth the gamble.