Rembrandt loses some glint

Press, 12 September 1986, Page 17

Rembrandt loses some glint

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

Question: When is a Rembrandt not a Rembrandt? Answer: When it has been cleaned. The world-famous “Man With The Golden Helmet” has just undergone a year of treatment and scholarship. The work is back hanging in its West Berlin gallery — but it is no longer the star item. The description of its authorship has been changed from “Rembrandt” to "School of Rembrandt” This is one of the most spectacular downfalls in the history of art. The “Man With The Golden Helmet” had been viewed as an embodiment of Rembrandt’s genius. The administrators of the Dahlem Gallery are celebrating the portrait’s declassification as a triumph of modem scholarship. They used X-ray and ultra-violet photographs, infra-red reflectaV

graphs, and neutron activation in an atomic reactor. These tools allowed the scholars to see beneath the yellow varnish of the exterior. Results confirmed suspicions first expressed 20 years ago. The preliminary drawings and corrections made visible under the varnish showed that a talented pupil of Rembrandt must have built up the glittering gold relief of the splendid helmet. Also the man inside the helmet is based on smalt — consisting of pulverised glass coloured blue with cobalt — which in the seventeenth centuiy replaced expensive lapis lazuli. High arsenic content was found in the doublet, and the bone black used in the background was produced by

burning bones, teeth, and ivory. Possibly not even Rembrandt himself knew about that. The question the scholars had to ask was — Do such chemical findings provide any clues about who painted it? The mid-seventeenth century is not regarded as a good time for Rembrandt. His low physical condition, social ostracism, and personal attitudes meant he was no longer in demand. The morose knight in the painting had seemed to fit into his time of crisis perfectly. The gloomy picture was seen as a moral appeal and admonition rather than as a confession of resignation. The scholars considered

authorship could not be seen as a simple question of whether or not Rembrandt painted it. He had more than 100 pupils, and the painters’ guild to which he belonged allowed painters to sign the best of their pupils’ works and sell them as their own. More important is that the picture itself is of doubtful origin. It appeared from nowhere in 1897 when a German gallery director bought the extremely dirty work — “Portrait Study of Rembrandt’s Brother Adriaen” — for only 20.000DM from a London dealer. Not much attention has been paid to this before. Most of Rembrandt’s works are not included in a list of ownership, which makes them very vulnerable. At the turn of the century there were considered to be about 1000 authentic Rembrandts; today only 350 originals are accepted. J