A "fake" Rembrandt which could ultimately prove to be authentic ... A painting, stored for almost 40 years by a British museum because it was considered a fake Rembrandt, indeed comes from the school of the Flemish master and will undergo new analyzes for determine if the latter is the author, announced Tuesday, September 1, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.
Read also: A rare self-portrait of Rembrandt sold for 16 million euros in 6 minutes
Entitled “Head of a Bearded Man”, this small portrait of an elderly man looking down was donated to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford in 1951. It was then presented to the public as a Rembrandt.
But in 1982, the Rembrandt Research Project, which is authoritative on the painter's work, rejected the work as false, which was then put in storage.
Read also: In the footsteps of Rembrandt, in the Holland of the Golden Age
But after further research using new technology,
"it can now be confirmed that (the painting) was painted in Rembrandt's studio around 1630,"
the Ashmolean said in a statement.
The canvas will be featured in the current
Young Rembrandt
exhibition
,
"before undergoing further research and restoration work in the Ashmolean laboratories to determine if there is any evidence of work by Rembrandt's own hand. "
added the museum.
It was during the preparation of this exhibition that the curator An Van Camp decided to re-examine the painting.
The latter was then analyzed using the technique of dendrochronology, a method of dating wood, which established that the picture was painted on a panel from an oak on the banks of the Baltic fell in 1618 and 1628. , used in other works of Rembrandt.
Asked by the
Guardian
, An Van Camp clarified that the experts, who had rejected the painting in 1982, had dated it
"before the end of the 17th century, not even during Rembrandt's lifetime".
But she had always been convinced of the authenticity of the little painting:
“That's what Rembrandt does.
He does these little studies of old people with sad, melancholy, pensive looks. "
/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/NMJYW7ZSYRBHHP5LUWX75T3PBE.jpeg)