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A Rembrandt painting that was thought to be pretend and was stashed in a basement for decades could in truth be real, in response to specialists who imagine it was painted on wooden from the identical tree as different 17th century masterpieces.
“Head of a Bearded Man” was bequeathed to the University of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum in 1951, however the Rembrandt Research Project, a main authority on the Dutch painter’s works, decided in 1982 that it was merely considered one of a variety of copies.
Now, an skilled has stated that the wooden panel on which it was painted got here from the identical tree used for Rembrandt’s “Andromeda Chained to the Rocks” and Jan Lievens’ “Portrait of Rembrandt’s Mother” — two works relationship to 1630 that had been painted when the 2 artists had been working in Leiden.
The portrait is considered one of a variety of dismissed Rembrandt works that have been not too long ago re-attributed to the artist. It means the tiny painting may be very prone to have come from Rembrandt’s workshop, and will even have been crafted by the Dutch grasp himself.
Peter Klein, an skilled in tree relationship, analyzed the expansion rings of the tree to find out when it was felled.
“The Ashmolean’s ‘Head of a Bearded Man’ was painted on a panel which came from an oak tree in the Baltic region, felled between 1618 and 1628, and used in two known works by Rembrandt and Lievens,” Klein stated in a assertion.
The painting, left, and an infrared model of the picture, proper. Credit: Ashmolean Museum/University of Oxford
The painting depicts an aged man with a downcast gaze, which the museum stated was typical of Rembrandt’s work on the time.
A printed label caught to the again of the painting was reduce out from a Paris public sale home catalog from February 1777. It reads: “A Head of an Old Man, painted by Rembrandt. Very (realistic/ true to nature?) colour; height, six pouces by five wide. (sic)”
The painting will be displayed in the museum this month as a part of the Young Rembrandt exhibition and can then be analyzed additional to find out its actual origin.
“Examination of this small painting suggests that prior to the earliest known photograph (published in 1936), touches of paint were added by an unknown hand which have considerably disrupted the subtle illusion of depth and movement,” conservator Jevon Thistlewood stated in a assertion. “When the exhibition closes we will begin the process of restoring the painting and we can’t wait to see what we find.”
A notoriously prolific artist in the course of the so-called Dutch Golden Age, Rembrandt van Rijn produced lots of of work and etchings throughout his lifetime, ensuing in quite a few attribution disputes.
The Metropolitan Museum’s “Portrait of a Man (The Auctioneer)” and Frick Collection’s “Polish Rider” are amongst these nonetheless debated in the artwork world. While a variety of work are actually being reconsidered as genuine Rembrandt items, with latest evaluation overturning decades of assumptions about some works.
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