A portrait long considered to be by one of Rembrandt’s students, has been unveiled in Amsterdam as a work by the old master himself.
Portrait of an Elderly Woman in a White Bonnet went on display at the Rembrandt House museum on Thursday after three years of painstaking restoration — including the removal of a fur collar probably added in the 18th century.
The painting came to light when a Sotheby’s expert made a routine valuation visit to its Texan owners in 2002. There was a feeling that ”it looked very much like a Rembrandt”, according to George Gordon, of the auction house’s old master department.
It was taken to Amsterdam, where Ernst van de Wetering, head of the Rembrandt Research Project, and Martin Bijl, former head of paintings conservation at the Rijksmuseum, began a programme of research and restoration — the key part of which was the discovery of a white collar beneath the fur.
”In the 17th century, the rich fur would have looked ridiculous, because she is wearing a working woman’s bonnet,” said Gordon. ”The funny thing is that all the evidence was sitting there, but we didn’t realise straight away. If you look at her cheek, jowl and chin you can see reflected light — that was him painting reflection of her white collar. With dark fur it didn’t make any sense.”
The work is probably an oil study; an investigation into the way the light hits the old woman’s headdress. Van de Wetering said the sketch could have been used by the artist to help him work out how to light the head of the woman in his renowned 1641 portrait of the preacher Anslo and his wife, in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. Oil sketches are a relatively little investigated part of Rembrandt’s output, and this study could cast new light on his creative process, according to Gordon.
The portrait will be sold in January for an estimated $3-million — $4-million. – Guardian Unlimited Â