According to experts, an oil sketch declared as a clumsy Rembrandt copy is actually an original by the famous Dutch painter. This could be proven with the help of the latest technology. The artwork also bears a close resemblance to a painting exhibited in Munich.
For decades, the 17th-century oil sketch "Rising of the Cross" gathered dust in a corner of the Bredius Museum in The Hague because it was believed to be a Rembrandt copy - now Dutch experts are convinced that it is an original by the "Master of the light". They were able to prove this, among other things, through investigations using the latest technology, in which the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam also participated.
The oil sketch was bought in 1921 by the Dutch art historian, collector and curator Abraham Bredius. He was then convinced that it was a real Rembrandt. Later, however, experts dismissed the image as a clumsy imitation of a student of the Baroque master. They pointed out that the rough brushstrokes did not correspond to Rembrandt's technique.
Research by the restorer Johanneke Verhave and the former chief curator for old paintings at the Rotterdam Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Jeroen Giltaij, now come to a different conclusion. I watched this work over and over again. The brush strokes. They are brilliant," Giltaij, who "rediscovered" the sketch while researching a book about Rembrandt, told the AFP news agency. Verhave, who restored the picture and examined it with Giltaj, is also impressed by the "quality of the details " convinced that it is a real Rembrandt.
Giltaj concedes that Rembrandt typically painted in a decidedly "precise and polished" manner. But in this case you have to keep in mind that it was a sketch in preparation for a painting, said the expert. The expert points to the similarity with Rembrandt's "The Raising of the Cross" from 1633, which is on display in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. The confidently set "broad brushstrokes" of the sketch would have convinced him "that Bredius is right".
Investigations with infrared radiation and X-ray scans further supported the conviction of the two experts. "The investigations revealed that the sketch was modified several times during the painting process," Verhave said. "This shows that their originator changed his mind during the work - he clearly did not simply copy another image". The results of Verhaves and Giltaij's research were forwarded to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, which carried out its own material analysis. Its experts "found nothing that contradicts an attribution to Rembrandt," said the Bredius Museum.
