Professor Casts Doubt on Rembrandt Treasure
Graham Davies
ic CheshireOnline
___________
London (UK):
Valued at around £7m, it should be one of the most prized possessions of a European Capital of Culture. But the true worth of a Rembrandt painting housed at the Walker Art Gallery for 50 years has been thrown into doubt amid revelations by an eminent art scholar.
The 1629 painting, Self Portrait as a Young Man, may not have been painted by the master after all, according to Rembrandt authority Professor Ernst van de Wetering. Instead, it could be the work of a pupil in the Dutch artist's workshop, the professor claims in his latest book, A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, Volume IV.
However, the Walker insists the painting is genuine and says the professor's view is not a definitive judgment. Van de Wetering, head of the internationally-recognised Rembrandt Research Project, writes:
"Not only the rather feeble treatment of detail, whether of the face, the chain or the shawl, but also of such elements as the contours and the distribution of light in the background argue against Rembrandt. "The manner in which the brushstrokes, as it were, passively accompany the shapes, while modelling the lit flesh parts, would seem to testify to a fundamentally different pictorial approach from that of Rembrandt.
"This rather primitive way of relating the brushstrokes to the form is so relentlessly applied that the face in a peculiar fashion is deformed by it." Van de Wetering, who is Emeritus professor of art history at Amsterdam University, points out that doubts about the painting's authenticity first surfaced among art experts in London and The Hague six years ago.
Nov 01, 2005
Graham Davies
ic CheshireOnline
___________
London (UK):
Valued at around £7m, it should be one of the most prized possessions of a European Capital of Culture. But the true worth of a Rembrandt painting housed at the Walker Art Gallery for 50 years has been thrown into doubt amid revelations by an eminent art scholar.
The 1629 painting, Self Portrait as a Young Man, may not have been painted by the master after all, according to Rembrandt authority Professor Ernst van de Wetering. Instead, it could be the work of a pupil in the Dutch artist's workshop, the professor claims in his latest book, A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, Volume IV.
However, the Walker insists the painting is genuine and says the professor's view is not a definitive judgment. Van de Wetering, head of the internationally-recognised Rembrandt Research Project, writes:
"Not only the rather feeble treatment of detail, whether of the face, the chain or the shawl, but also of such elements as the contours and the distribution of light in the background argue against Rembrandt. "The manner in which the brushstrokes, as it were, passively accompany the shapes, while modelling the lit flesh parts, would seem to testify to a fundamentally different pictorial approach from that of Rembrandt.
"This rather primitive way of relating the brushstrokes to the form is so relentlessly applied that the face in a peculiar fashion is deformed by it." Van de Wetering, who is Emeritus professor of art history at Amsterdam University, points out that doubts about the painting's authenticity first surfaced among art experts in London and The Hague six years ago.
Nov 01, 2005
