Thomas Scott Kaplan (born September 14, 1962) is a Franco-American businessman, philanthropist and art collector. He is the world's largest private collector of Rembrandt's works and among the world's leading investors in gold and silver.
Kaplan is the chairman and chief investment officer of The Electrum Group LLC, a New York City-based investment, advisory and asset management firm with a focus on the natural resources sector. From 2017 to 2023 he served as chairman of the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas (ALIPH), a Geneva-based foundation established by France and the United Arab Emirates.
Early life and education Born in New York City, Kaplan is the son of Lillian Jean Kaplan and Jason "Jay" Kaplan. He and his family are Jewish.Forbes Israel: Jewish Billionaires - Profile of Thomas Kaplan April 14, 2013 (in Hebrew)
In his youth, Kaplan developed a passion for wildlife conservation and for Rembrandt, which later inspired him to found the field conservation group Panthera and The Leiden Collection, the world's largest private grouping of works from the Dutch Golden Age.
At Oxford University, Kaplan earned bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in history. Under the supervision of Sir Michael Howard, then Regius Professor of History, and Chichele Professor of War Robert O'Neill, he wrote his doctoral dissertation on the Malayan counterinsurgency and the manner in which commodities influence strategic planning. While earning his Ph.D., Kaplan worked as an analyst covering Israeli companies publicly traded in the U.S. On a business trip, he met his future wife, Dafna Recanati (the daughter of Israeli investor Leon Recanati), who had attended the same Swiss boarding school as Kaplan, Institut Le Rosey. Her mother, artist Mira Recanati, introduced him to Israeli investor Avi Tiomkin, who hired him as a junior partner in 1991. Kaplan had impressed Tiomkin by correctly predicting Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait several years before it took place. When Tiomkin decided to concentrate his investments solely in Israel in 1993, Kaplan moved on to pursue his own entrepreneurial ventures.
Career
Apex Silver Inspired by Marc Faber, who held that precious metals were insurance against the "monetary foolishness" of central governments, Kaplan focused on natural resources investing. In 1993, with silver trading below $4 per ounce, he founded Apex Silver Mines to capitalize on the improving supply/demand fundamentals of the precious metal. While he was chairman and chief executive officer of Apex, his team, led by chief geologist Dr. Larry Buchanan discovered and financed the mining of San Cristobal in Bolivia, one of the largest zinc, lead and silver deposits in the world. Kaplan retired from Apex Silver at the end of 2004 to pursue exploration opportunities in platinum group metals and energy.
In 2003, a company related to Kaplan became the largest investor in African Platinum Plc (then known as Southern African Resources Plc). That same year, Kaplan founded Leor Exploration & Production LLC, which became the fastest-growing privately held hydrocarbon exploration and production company in the United States.
Pivot to gold and silver In 2007, concerned that market conditions globally were "too good" and determined to sell his "economically sensitive assets", Kaplan pivoted into gold and silver, which he regarded as currencies rather than just commodities.
In the spring of 2007 Kaplan sold his position in African Platinum as part of a transaction in which the company was acquired by Impala Platinum Limited, at a valuation of $580 million. In November 2007, Leor's natural gas assets in Texas were sold to Encana (now Ovintiv) for $2.55 billion.
Kaplan has been labeled "Gold's Evangelist" and was quoted in 2009 saying "I can find no better time than now to recommend its purchase to others. Some will say that US$800 gold seems expensive. I would suggest the contrary: that a few years from now, sub-$1,000 gold will feel like a true gift."
Beginning in 2010, Kaplan again began accumulating silver mining assets and waited for long-stagnant prices to rebound.
Kaplan says his "mantra" is to "go for the great assets that give you tremendous underlying leverage to your theme... but only in jurisdictions that will allow you to keep the fruits of the leverage." Analysts have referred to his highlighting the importance of jurisdictional risks in the mining industry as the "Kaplan Doctrine".
Electrum Group Since the sales of African Platinum and Leor, Kaplan has focused on the Electrum Group which holds interests in several publicly traded companies including NovaGold Resources. In May 2019, with gold then trading at $1,280 per ounce, Kaplan was quoted as saying: “I do believe gold embarks upon the next leg of its bull market and goes past $1,900 and ultimately, $3,000 to $5,000, if not a lot higher, depending on macro circumstances that today seem dim, but which I can’t really quantify.”
In August 2020, it was reported that Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway had made an investment in Barrick Gold, NOVAGOLD's joint venture partner in the Donlin Gold mine project in Alaska.
The Electrum Group was formerly the controlling shareholder in the Los Gatos silver-zinc deposit in Mexico, which it developed in partnership with Dowa of Japan. Los Gatos Silver went public in October 2020, raising $170 million. In September 2024, Gatos Silver was acquired by First Majestic for $970 million.
In December 2020, with silver trading at $24 per ounce, he was quoted as saying the precious metal would hit “triple digits.”
The Electrum Group is the controlling shareholder of Sunshine Silver Mining & Refining Corporation, which owns the Sunshine Mine in Idaho, one of the largest and highest grade silver producers in U.S. history, as well as Sinda Ltd., an exploration-stage silver miner with operations in Guanajuato, Mexico.
In April 2025, together with fellow investor John Paulson, Kaplan's NOVAGOLD secured control of Donlin Gold, which is developing America's biggest gold mine in Alaska, by buying Barrick Mining's 50% interest in the project for $1 billion.
In June 2026, Sunshine Silver Mining & Refining raised $270 million in an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. The company has stated it plan to use IPO proceeds to fund feasibility studies and exploration to restart production.
That same month, Electrum-backed Sinda Ltd. raised $323 million in a NYSE IPO and concurrent private placement with Fresnillo, the world's largest silver producer..
The Leiden Collection Kaplan's passion for Dutch art began in his childhood with his first visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art at the age of 6. Kaplan and his wife, Dafna Recanati Kaplan, began to collect the art of the Dutch Golden Age in 2003. In that year, they acquired their first Dutch painting: Gerrit Dou's Portrait of Dirck van Beresteyn. For the next five years, they acquired artwork at an average rate of nearly a painting a week.
The Leiden Collection, named after the Dutch town of Leiden where Rembrandt and Dou were born, is among the largest private collections of Dutch art in the world, with more than 250 paintings and drawings, most of which are included in a free, high-resolution online catalogue. The Kaplans' intention was to establish a "lending library for old masters", including loans for special exhibitions as well as loans to bolster long-term installations. It is estimated that these loans encompass over 40 museums worldwide.
The collection, which includes Rembrandt's Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyes and Minerva in Her Study, was featured in a three-part documentary entitled "Looking for Rembrandt" that aired on the BBC in April 2019 on the 350th anniversary of Rembrandt's death.
The Leiden Collection focuses on Rembrandt and his school. The collection contains 250 paintings and drawings, mainly by 17th-century artists based in Leiden. It includes 17 paintings by Rembrandt as well as the sole privately-held works remaining by Johannes Vermeer and works by Rembrandt’s most celebrated pupil, Carel Fabritius.
The collection also includes paintings by members of Rembrandt's circle including his teacher, Pieter Lastman, as well as works by Jan Lievens and 13 paintings spanning the career of Gerrit Dou, Rembrandt's first pupil. A catalog of the Dou works in the collection, with technical analyses, appeared in 2014. An online catalog of the collection, with information on more than 175 of the works, was published in January 2017 with a preface authored by Kaplan. The essay, A Portrait in Oil, describes the origins and evolution of the Leiden CollectionOnline catalogue of The Leiden Collection, Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and others
In March 2026, The Leiden Collection acquired Man With a Plumed Red Beret (1654) by one of Rembrandt’s pupils, Willem Drost. The piece was once stolen by the Nazis and later owned by the Rothschild and Safra banking dynasties.
The Five Senses by Rembrandt van Rijn At a 2015 auction in Bloomfield, New Jersey, a European bidder bought The Fainting Patient or Smell for $870,000, though its pre-auction estimate had only been $800. This was identified as an early work by Rembrandt, dating to 1624 and belonging to his The Five Senses series.Ilona van Tuinen, 'A newly discovered painting by Rembrandt van Rijn: The unconscious patient (smell)', in: Jordaens. Rembrandt. Two new early works. Paris, Talabardon & Gautier, 2016, p. 20-37. Soon after, the Leiden Collection acquired the work for $5 million.Ernst van de Wetering, Rembrandt's Beginnings - an Essay, in: Ernst van de Wetering, Bernhard Schnackeburg e.a., The Mystery of the Young Rembrandt, Staatliche Museen Kassel, Het Rembrandthuis, Amsterdam, 2001-2002, pp. 22-57. The Leiden Collection owned Hearing and Touch from the series (Sight is in the Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden and the whereabouts of Taste is unknown).
Smell bears Rembrandt's monogram (RF or RHF, Rembrandt Harmensz. fecit), representing the master's earliest known signature, and is similar in dimensions and style to the other known works in the series. Arjen Ribbens, 'Nieuwe' Rembrandt gevonden, NRC Handelsblad, March 10, 2016. The three Leiden Collection works were exhibited at the Getty Museum in 2016, and the complete extant set of four were reunited for shows at the Ashmolean Museum and Rembrandthuis in 2017. Bram de Klerck, Zintuigen van Rembrandt opnieuw samen, in: NRC Handelsblad, C15, 6 januari 2017
Notable works Arjan Ribbens, Honderden Hollandse meesters in handen van deze Amerikaanse miljardair, NRC Handelsblad, January 11, 2017.
Exhibitions Notable past and upcoming exhibitions of the Leiden Collection include: October 25, 2025 – March 29, 2026, Art and Life in Rembrandt's Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida April 9, 2025 – August 24, 2025, From Rembrandt to Vermeer: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. H'ART Museum, Amsterdam February 4, 2023 – August 27, 2023, Rembrandt & His Contemporaries. History Paintings from the Leiden Collection, H'ART Museum, Amsterdam February 14, 2019 – May 18, 2019, Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre, Louvre Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi September 5, 2018 – January 13, 2019, The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection, The State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg March 28, 2018 – July 22, 2018, The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow September 23, 2017 – February 25, 2018, Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection, Long Museum West Bund, Shanghai June 17, 2017 – September 3, 2017, Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection, National Museum of China, Beijing