More Rembrandts

The Rembrandt Research Project of the Netherlands has recently re-attributed up to 70 works to Rembrandt.  There now appears to be approximately 340 known Rembrandt paintings. Many of these newly attributed or re-attributed works have in the past have been considered to be lesser works or by contemporary artists, and many are held by important museums.  44 of the 70 works were in the past attributed to Rembrandt, then de-attributed, and now attributed to the master again.

As appraisers we know scholarship changes over the years and centuries

The Wall Street Journal reports on the findings

Are there suddenly dozens more genuine Rembrandts in the world?

There are if art authorities accept the findings of Ernst van de Wetering, the Dutch art historian and longtime head of the Netherlands-based Rembrandt Research Project. In its sixth and final volume, published Wednesday, Mr. van de Wetering reattributes 70 paintings—often discounted by previous scholars as well as the institutions that own them—to the Dutch master. They include four at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Of those, Mr. van de Wetering is quick to emphasize “Portrait of a Man,” also known as “The Auctioneer,” dated 1658 by the researcher.

In the volume, Mr. van de Wetering revisits previous conclusions by the project, which began in 1968. In its early decades, a team of experts including Mr. van de Wetering made group decisions that “deattributed” many Rembrandts, advocating removal of the artist’s authorship. Among the 70 attribution changes in Volume 6, Mr. van de Wetering, now making the decisions himself, restores 44 of those deattributions to Rembrandt. He now describes the project’s “democratic” decisions as “unjust.”

Not everyone in the art world will go along with the new list, however. Walter Liedtke, a curator in the Met’s European Paintings department, is aware of Mr. van de Wetering’s attribution of “The Auctioneer.” But he says he remains happy with the museum’s conclusion in a 2007 examination of its Dutch paintings “that it is a work in Rembrandt’s style circa 1660.” The picture is not on view.

“The scholarly consensus in the world very much remains that this painting is not by Rembrandt, and that has been the consensus for 30 years,” Mr. Liedtke adds. “I have not yet heard his argument, so I should reserve judgment.” As for Mr. van de Wetering’s opinion about the other three works at the Met, Mr. Liedtke says, ““I’ve briefly heard Ernst’s opinions on these three works and so far am unconvinced by them.”

At smaller institutions, Mr. van de Wetering’s opinion can have a huge impact. Volume 6 will present his arguments for reattributing the circa 1658 work, “Portrait of Dirck van Os, ” at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Neb. The museum bought the work as a genuine Rembrandt in 1942, but over the decades experts began to doubt the attribution. In 1987, the museum downgraded the work to “School of Rembrandt.” Mr. van de Wetering’s examination of the painting led to a cleaning and further analysis—and his opinion spurred an attribution in May.

Attendance figures are up this year, says Joslyn director Jack Becker. “Many times I have heard people asking ‘Where is the Rembrandt?’ or talking with one another about how they have to see the Rembrandt,“ he says.

Volume 6’s reattributions of Rembrandts in the U.S. include “Portrait of a Man Reading by Candlelight” (1648), also known as “Man Reading,” at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass. The museum became aware of Mr. van de Wetering’s opinion in 2011, and in response upgraded its description of the work from “Rembrandt School” to the qualified “attributed to” Rembrandt. Mr. van de Wetering does not think any qualification is called for. “Van de Wetering is the guy now,” says Clark senior curator Richard Rand, when asked why the museum adds a grain of salt to its description, “but I have enough experience to know that a status of a work can go up and down.”

The number of accepted Rembrandts has fluctuated dramatically over the last century, peaking at 714 in the 1920s, according to Rembrandt scholar Gary Schwartz. The number fell below 300 in the 1980s thanks to the deattributions of the early volumes of the Rembrandt Research Project. Mr. van de Wetering sees his recent work as a reaction against the “reductionist” tendencies of the Rembrandt project in its earlier days as well as decisions made by experts at leading museums, like the Met.

Mr. van de Wetering is both a trained artist and an art historian. An occasional dissenting voice in the early decades of the Rembrandt project, he took over as head in 1992. While still relying on advice from a field of experts, he turned the project into a vehicle for his own opinions in volumes 4 and 5, which covered thematic aspects of Rembrandt’s work. He is widely regarded as one of the world’s most respected authorities on Rembrandt. Funders of the project have included the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research and the University of Amsterdam.

The project, an attempt to verify every surviving Rembrandt painting, is still officially in existence. In Volume 6, Mr. van de Wetering argues some 340 paintings should be attributed to Rembrandt, including 44 of the deattributions reversed in the final volume. “There was a tendency to say no to paintings,” says Mr. van de Wetering, speaking at his Amsterdam home, “and that tendency was too strong.”

The new publication is sure to spark arguments for years to come. “Rembrandt scholars are looking forward to having this book,” says Jonathan Bikker, the curator of research at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum and a leading expert on Rembrandt. That includes some who disagree with Mr. van de Wetering.

For example, Mr. van de Wetering and British Rembrandt expert Christopher Brown disagree about an early self-portrait in Liverpool’s Walker Art Gallery. (The work was discussed in Volume 4.) Mr. van de Wetering thinks the work is by a pupil. Mr. Brown, director emeritus of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, thinks the work is by Rembrandt himself. Mr. Brown says he is “very interested” to look at Volume 6.

In the new work, Mr. van de Wetering says the Met’s “Rembrandt as a Young Man” is a genuine self-portrait. The museum says it’s in the “style of Rembrandt.” Mr. van de Wetering says, “It’s painted on a panel of a size you find quite often with Rembrandt. There is a painting underneath, which you often find with self-portraits. There is a signature, and the wood is from the right date.”

Source: The Wall Street Journal