A HISTORIC series of Rembrandt paintings - including one uncovered in an American basement - is now on display at Oxford's Ashmolean Museum.

Hearing, Touch, Smell and Sight are the four surviving panels from the Dutch painter's Five Senses series, created about 1624 when the artist was still a teenager.

The display, which runs until November 27, is taking place after the Museum de Lakenhal in Leiden, The Netherlands, lent the Ashmolean Sight.

The remaining paintings came on loan from the private Leiden Collection in New York.

As part of the display a space has been left for the fifth painting which is still missing.

An Van Camp, curator of Northern European Art at the Ashmolean Museum, said: "These earliest of paintings by Rembrandt are fascinating in what they tell us of the young artist’s abilities and his immaturity.

"The paintings show that at the age of just 18 Rembrandt already has a genius for representing human character and emotion, and for packing in amazing amounts of detail into the briefest of brushstrokes – skills that would see him become one of the most celebrated artists of all time."

A year ago only three of the four panels were known to be in existence and the Ashmolean’s display follows the sensational rediscovery of Smell last year.

The painting was uncovered in the basement of a house in New Jersey and was offered at auction as a minor 19th-century painting at an estimate of $500–$800.

Two eagle-eyed experts in European auction houses suspected the picture was an early Rembrandt and the bidding war resulted in a hammer price of $870,000.

The painting was then bought by the Leiden Collection in New York, and the attribution to Rembrandt was confirmed by the presence of the artist’s monogram RHF – standing for Rembrandt Harmenszoon Fecit - (Rembrandt, son of Harmen, made this).

The newly discovered panel was unveiled to the public in Maastricht in The Netherlands earlier this year and the Ashmolean’s display reunites this new discovery with Sight, Hearing and Touch for the first time.

Rembrandt was born in Leiden in 1606 and died in 1669.

For further information visit ashmolean.org