Rembrandt or not? - Rembrandt Research Project attempts to authenticate certain works

Art in America, Jan, 1993 by John Gash

The "Workshop" section of the National Gallery exhibition, comprising 32 pictures, included a small number of signed or otherwise firmly authenticated works by followers to act as yardsticks against which the other attributions, many of them previously claimed for Rembrandt himself, could be tested. The approach to the newly proposed attributions was cautious and levelheaded. The results were mixed. Some of the proposals which stood up best to comparative scrutiny were, perhaps unsurprisingly, those which have been advocated and increasingly widely accepted over a number of years. Indeed, one might argue that such broadening acceptance by a variety of individuals via a series of "testings" (such as juxtapositions in exhibitions or closely argued written dialogues between scholars) is the sine qua non of a successful attribution.

On this occasion, intelligently selected comparative pictures have clinched two such strong cases beyond reasonable doubt. Thus, The Feast of Esther (Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art), fluidly painted in sumptuous pinks and blues, was revealed as an above average example of the work of Rembrandt's Leiden colleague, Jan Lievens - corroborated by the colors, facial types and handling of the two other Lievens pictures on show. The only reason that it could ever have been given to Rembrandt would have been that the judgment was made on the basis of a black-and-white photograph. An only slightly less compelling display was offered in the case of Samuel van Hoogstraten, a Rembrandt pupil of the 1640s. And here too we see how the cooperative and cumulative nature of scholarship can bear fruit. Three pictures were hung together: a signed and dated Hoogstraten self-portrait of 1645 from the Liechtenstein Collection, Vaduz, and two paintings previously often thought to be by Rembrandt - a Boy Leaning over a Half-Door (St. Petersburg, Hermitage Museum) first attributed to Hoogstraten by Werner Sumowski on the basis of a preparatory drawing; and the Young Woman at an Open Half-door in the Chicago Art Institute, proposed as a Hoogstraten by Josua Bruyn of the RRP and presented here as "Attributed to Hoogstraten." Christopher Brown, in his judicious catalogue entry, voices the hope that the display of the three pictures side by side will permit the attribution of the latter two to Hoogstraten to be sustained. It triumphantly does for the Hermitage painting, while making a reasonable case for the Chicago one, However, the beautiful handling of paint in the latter work leaves one with a lingering suspicion that it may be by Rembrandt.

Also alluring was the tentative attribution of The Vision of Daniel in Berlin (thought by Kenneth Clark to be a very moving Rembrandt - and still just conceivably such) to the master's pupil of the early 1650s, Willem Drost. The comparison picture (itself only an attribution to Drost - though a plausible one) of Ruth and Naomi in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, did no disservice to the suggestion, while The Unmerciful Servant in the Wallace Collection, also re-attributed to Drost, furthers the case. Indeed Drost, with his passages of very broad brushwork interspersed with more finished ones, is emerging as one of Rembrandt's most accomplished disciples, in tune with the techniques, language and emotional tenor of the mature master. The attribution to him by Peter Schatborn in the drawings and etchings catalogue of the beautiful pen-and-ink drawing of The Angel Departing from the Family of Tobit in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, is also plausible - its rough-hewn qualities more characteristic of Drost's expressionism than Rembrandt's expressiveness. In view of the growing stature of this once shadowy figure, only two of whose paintings are securely autograph, it is not surprising that some have already claimed for him, as an ultimate trophy, another great American "Rembrandt" - The Polish Rider in the Frick Collection. The RRP has not yet reached this picture but, when it does, it would not be at odds with the drift of current thought in opting for Drost.