Collector Thomas S. Kaplan and his wife Daphne Recanati Kaplan are bringing their Leiden Collection, one of the world's largest private holdings of 17th-century Dutch art, to the US for the first time. Around a third of the collection's 220-plus works will be shown in "Art and Life in Rembrandt’s Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection" at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach from 25 October 2025 to 29 March 2026. Kaplan is also in discussions to fractionalise the collection into shares and float it as an IPO.
This matters because the exhibition marks a rare major US presentation of Old Master works from a private collection, coinciding with the 400th anniversary of the Dutch founding of New York. Kaplan's approach—treating the collection as a "lending library" that has supplemented 80 museums worldwide—challenges traditional notions of private ownership. His comments on younger collectors engaging with Old Masters and the scarcity of such works highlight ongoing shifts in the art market, while his evangelical passion for Rembrandt underscores the enduring relevance of 17th-century Dutch art.