Two famous portraits by Rembrandt which have been hidden away in a private collection in France are going on sale, US website Art Market Monitor reports.

The pair of paintings are of the 21-year-old Maerten Soolmans and his 23-year-old financee Oopjen Coppit, the daughter of an Amsterdam nobleman. Rembrandt painted them just before their wedding and the young couple paid 500 guilders.

The portraits were bought in 1877 by baron Gustave de Rothschild and were only shown to the public for a short period in 1956 in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam.

The Rothschild family has now put them on the market for €150m.

According to Art Market Monitor it is striking that the French state is letting them go. Countries usually do everything possible to keep such famous works within their borders, the website says. But the French culture ministry and the director of the Louvre in Paris have confirmed they have no interest in the paintings.