ARTS
The proof is in the wrinkles
When is a Rembrandt not a Rembrandt and vice versa? Martin Bailey investigates
The Queen must be pleased to have her Rembrandt back again. 'Portrait of Rem- brandt in a Flat Cap' in the Royal Collec- tion, dismissed as a fake for over 20 years, is now once again attributed to the master. And what makes the experts confident of its authenticity? The answer lies in the wrinkles on the artist's face. Although it was the Rembrandt Research Project which originally branded the picture as the work of a later imitator, this same group has now reversed its view and is confident that the Queen's painting is a genuine self- portrait. The turbulent world of Rem- brandt scholarship is facing yet another change of direction.
No other artist has ever been subjected to such intense study as Rembrandt. Early this century it was believed that over a thousand of his pictures survived, but since then the number has been pruned and most experts would put the figure at closer to 250. In 1968, on the eve of the 300th anniversary of the painter's death, it was decided that establishing exactly which were the genuine Rembrandts was too great a task for a single scholar and a team effort was required. The Rembrandt Research Project (RRP) was therefore set up in Amsterdam, run by a small group of leading Dutch historians.
Nearly three decades later, the goal of sorting out which are the authentic pictures still seems elusive and the RRP has opted for a new approach. This change, signalled in an article in the learned pages of the March issue of the Burlington Magazine, has been announced by the chairman Ernst van de Wetering and his colleague Paul Broekhoff. They admit that when the RRP was set up it was assumed that `Rembrandt's oeuvre was contaminated on a considerable scale by later imitations and forgeries' — and that these could be exposed using modern scientific techniques. Both assump- tions have turned out to be wrong.
Few later forgeries were discovered. Instead it emerged that the problem lay in distinguishing between pictures from the master's hand and those produced by his workshop and pupils. Since workshop paint- ings date from the same period and were done with the same materials, scientific examination turned out to be much less helpful than initially hoped in the process of authentication. The RRP scholars, there- fore, fell back on old-fashioned connois- seurship, using their eyes, experience and instinct to decide what looked like a genuine Rembrandt. Van de Wetering now admits that too much faith was placed on this approach and 'heated controversy remains' over some of the downgraded pictures.
'Connoisseurship will be deployed with 'Portrait of Rembrandt in a Flat Cap' the greatest possible reserve and only when all other arguments have been exhausted,' is the promise from the RRP. Van de Wetering cites the case of the Royal Col- lection picture as an example of the new approach, which involves painstaking work in building up all the evidence. 'Portrait of Rembrandt in a Flat Cap', signed and dated 1642, had been accepted as authentic until 1972, when the RRP sent a private letter to the Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures with the bad news: the prized self-portrait was 'neither by the artist nor from his studio'. The painting, which had considerable later overpaint, seemed to be by a later imitator. In 1979, a more detailed examination by a conservator led to the suggestion it was done a century after Rembrandt's death.
The RRP now admits that it was wrong, and further examination has revealed the picture to be authentic. The growth rings on the oak panel show that the wood came from a tree cut down after 1631, which is quite consistent with the 1642 date on the picture. Paint samples confirm that the pig- ments could well be those of Rembrandt's time. The signature of the picture was scru- tinised by the Forensic Science Laboratory of the Dutch Ministry of Justice, which reached the verdict that it was authentic. X- rays revealed that the composition had been altered slightly in the area around the hat and near the forehead, in a way that was similar to Rembrandt's method of work.
Strong evidence in favour of the picture being a genuine Rembrandt came from a study of the artist's wrinkles. The RRP experts examined a series of authentic self- portraits, painstakingly noting how the painter aged: 'Near Rembrandt's right eye is a sagging fold of skin which in the course of time gradually hooded the eyelid. Other potentially significant facial features include a slightly asymmetrical vertical wrinkle in the forehead at the left terminating at Rem- brandt's left eye socket, as well as some hor- izontal wrinkles on the bridge of the nose.'
These features are all present in the Royal Collection picture. The RRP argued that only Rembrandt himself would have subjected his face to such intense scrutiny. X-rays support this conclusion, revealing that the subtle wrinkles on the bridge of the nose in the Royal Collection picture were made by slightly varying the thickness of the paint, a technique which Rembrandt used in other authentic self-portraits. Finally, the RRP compared the Royal Col- lection picture to two other self-portraits from 1640 and 1645, finding that the devel- opment of the facial features in the Queen's picture lay somewhere between these two works. An imitator would have had great difficulty in accurately depicting all the details of the ageing face, but it would have required a stroke of genius to have then added a date of just the right period.
News of the acceptance of the Royal Collection portrait is the first concrete sign of the shift in the RRP's approach which followed the resignation of four of its five members in 1993, leaving van de Wetering of the University of Amsterdam in charge. Progress until then had been slower than originally hoped and the RRP was just half way through publishing its findings. These had appeared in three volumes of the Cor- pus of Rembrandt Paintings, a series of heavy tomes whose content is matched by their price (over E1,200 for the set). The three books cover the artist's work up until 1642, half way through his mid career, and the score on authenticity was 144 Rem- brandts, 120 non-Rembrandts, and 12 don't knows.
Three years ago, van de Wetering announced a change in approach. He was concerned about the rigid classification of declaring pictures to be 'Rembrandt' or 'non-Rembrandt' and felt that owners were sometimes being alienated. The other four RRP members were nearing retirement and, taking into account the long task ahead, they reluctantly decided to hand over to their younger colleague, who is assisted by other experts. Changes in the RRP team and its methods have not only delayed the publication schedule, but the two halves of Rembrandt's oeuvre will now be catalogued in slightly different ways. Per- haps a change of course is inevitable in such a major undertaking. As van de Wetering points out, 'Refinements in research meth- ods are generally the product of, rather than the impetus for, actual research'.
But why all the fuss over what is a Rem- brandt? As long as a picture looks like a Rembrandt, and was done in his workshop, does it really matter whether it was the master or a pupil who actually brushed on the paint? After all, many of the pictures which have recently been rejected as Rem- brandts fooled collectors for centuries. Financially, it counts. When in 1988 Sothe- by's auctioned 'A Bearded Man Standing in an Archway' it was accepted as authentic by some specialists, but downgraded by the RRP to a workshop picture. It then fetched $880,000, compared with the $10 million it would probably have received with the RRP blessing. But at a deeper level it is important. Art historians want to know exactly what Rembrandt did (and didn't) paint, since only by sorting out the authen- tic pictures can we get closer to under- standing exactly what constitutes the real Rembrandt.
Previous page
