A Rembrandt First Demoted and Now Promoted

The NY Times is reporting that one of REmbrandt's more important paintings, demoted to Rembrandt and/or Studio has now been promoted to that of a true Rembrandt. The painting has been studied, examined and restored over the past 8 years and is now again, as it was prior to 1969 deemed to be by the hand of Rembrandt. Technology and new scientific applications allowed for new and more in-depth analysis for both the study and attribution as well as the restoration.

An interesting article, and again shows how scholarship and science can work hand in hand. in authenticating fine art.

The NY Times reports

THE HAGUE — The painting was sliced down the middle and straight through its center in the 19th century, probably to be sold as two Rembrandt portraits. At some point in the next 40 years, it was sutured back together with pieces of an entirely different canvas, and layered with paint to cover up its scars.

In 1898, the director of the Mauritshuis Royal Picture Gallery here proudly displayed it in the museum as “Saul and David,” one of Rembrandt’s most important biblical works. Then in 1969, a top Rembrandt authority discredited the painting, and for years it hung next to a label that read, “Rembrandt and/or Studio,” a serious demotion.

Now, after eight years of examination and restoration by the museum’s own conservators — with support from researchers from various outside institutions, like the Delft University of Technology, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Netherlands Institute for Art History and Cornell University — the Mauritshuis has reclaimed the painting as an authentic Rembrandt, saying it was painted in two stages by the master’s own hand, one of hundreds of surviving Rembrandt paintings.

The museum is to reveal its findings on Tuesday two days before it opens an exhibition, “Rembrandt? The Case of Saul and David.” The show is devoted entirely to this single work, which depicts the young hero David playing a harp for an elderly King Saul, who is moved by the music and uses a curtain to wipe away his tears.

“It’s a very special occasion,” said Ernst van de Wetering, a Dutch art historian, a leading authority on Rembrandt and one of eight members on the museum’s independent advisory committee. “They must feel lucky. They have another addition to their fantastic collection of Rembrandt.”

Mr. van de Wetering, speaking in a telephone interview, added that the work was “a rare history painting from Rembrandt’s middle period.”

Other Rembrandt scholars who were not on the panel but who learned about the conclusions from a reporter, responded largely with approbation.

“It seems to me a reasonable proposition,” said Christopher White, a Dutch art specialist in London who is the former director of the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology in Oxford, England. “I’ve looked at it over the course of many years, and to me it really looks like a Rembrandt. It fits the style of Rembrandt and also his kind of handling. If I compare it with other Rembrandts it fits in perfectly well.”

Gary Schwartz, an American Rembrandt scholar and founder of Codart, an online resource for Dutch and Flemish paintings, said in an email: “The outcome of the new research does not surprise me. What is new is not the attribution itself but the minute attention to all the physical details of this complex canvas.”

If the attribution to Rembrandt seems largely uncontested now, why was it in limbo for almost 50 years? And what led the researchers to conclude that it was painted by the master, and not by one of his pupils or followers? The answer lies in evidence gathered using new technologies combined with a reinterpretation of the original painting by leading scholars. Determining a painting’s authorship is always a matter of art and science, though, and some Rembrandt researchers were tentative about weighing in before they had read all the new data.

“This painting is in a very bad state and that makes it harder to analyze,” said Stephanie Dickey, a professor in Northern Baroque art at Queen’s University in Canada and the author of three scholarly books about Rembrandt. “No matter how much scientific research you do there is always a subjective element. The most trustworthy aspect of this is the part that’s based on careful scientific analysis and the other is individual subjective analysis by select connoisseurs.”

Emilie Gordenker, the director of the Mauritshuis, said new scientific data gleaned from paint sample analysis and a new X-ray technique allowed restorers to look beneath the overpainted surface and gain fresh perspective on aspects of the painting that had been obscured by damage and previous restorations.

Attribution problems for the painting began in 1969 when the German-Dutch art historian Horst Gerson questioned its authorship in his reference book, “Rembrandt. The Complete Edition of the Paintings.” He suggested that it was the work of one of the master’s pupils, because “the painterly execution is superficial and inconsistent” and he didn’t “recognize Rembrandt’s touch in it.”

Mr. White, the Dutch art specialist in London, said the pronouncement “caused a storm at the time” and “then other people took it up,” though some scholars, like Mr. Schwartz, who was Mr. Gerson’s editor at the time, still had their doubts. The Mauritshuis nevertheless accepted Mr. Gerson’s decision, and changed the wall label next to the work to “Rembrandt and/or Studio” — as it has remained until now.

In 2007, the Mauritshuis began its own investigation, led by the head of conservation, Petria Noble, who is now chief conservator at the Rijksmuseum.

Ms. Gordenker, the Mauritshuis director, said: “The painting looked awful. The varnish had gotten very yellow, and it was very hard to read.”

There were two key questions that Ms. Gordenker said she hoped to answer.

“First, we knew that it had been cut apart, but we didn’t know what the original format was. How much was cut out?” she said. “And second had to do with iconography: The whole middle of the painting had been overpainted. Was it covering something up?”

To answer those questions, the Mauritshuis teamed up with Delft University of Technology and the University of Antwerp, which had developed a new mobile tool that allowed them to scan paintings using macro X-ray fluorescence analysis. This technique isolates individual elements in pigments used to make the paint, allowing researchers to identify a greater range of colors than was ever possible with previous technology, said the team’s leader, Joris Dik, a professor in Delft’s department of materials science.

Once researchers could differentiate original pigments from those that were added later, the museum could more easily start to conceptualize the original work. Knowing which part had been overpainted, they began gently to remove the yellowed varnish and overpaint to reveal the original work. Rather than taking the step of stripping the painting back to its most raw state, they chose to make the work “presentable” but not to hide its complex history.

The final assessment of attribution was made through the judgments of curators, restorers and members of the international advisory board of Rembrandt scholars. Ms. Gordenker, the Mauritshuis director, made the final call.

Examining the painting after the cleaning convinced Mr. van de Wetering that it was indeed a Rembrandt, but one that must have been painted earlier than thought. “For me, the clue was the dating,” said Mr. van de Wetering, who thinks that Rembrandt started the work in 1645 and completed it in 1652.

“Once you make that move to the earlier dating, suddenly you find other examples in his work of these lovely cloudy plays of light and flesh,” he said. “There’s so much color in this earlier phase of the painting, and there are certain things you find in the major parts of the turban of Saul and the brushwork and the type of detailing.”

He added, “These things together make it to me very convincing as a Rembrandt, and it’s not so much technical data but more re-dating and suddenly understanding the stylistic properties of the work.”

Ms. Dickey, the expert in Canada, said dating could often be very helpful in Rembrandt attribution issues.

“His style was not static and it was constantly evolving, so the way his art looks in 1640 is very different from how he was painting in 1650,” she said.

In the end, there is no single “smoking gun” that determined attribution, said Ms. Gordenker, who is also the curator of the exhibition. The new conclusions, she said, are only one aspect of an exhibition that showcases the museum’s conservatorial expertise.

Ms. Gordenker described the exhibition as a “‘CSI’-style forensic investigation” into the life, injury and revitalization of this work, and said she hoped that it would open up the matter to a broader discussion. It is quite possible that yet other experts, when they see the research for themselves, might draw different conclusions, she added.

“We really don’t want the ‘it is or it isn’t?’ question to dominate,” Ms. Gordenker said. “We take a point of view on it but we’re open to discoveries and new revelations.”

Source: NY Times