How to identify a genuine Rembrandt - Test 2

C1 Advanced · Multiple Matching · Cambridge English Advanced 3, Cambridge University Press

You are going to read an article about the difficulties associated with authenticating paintings by the 17th-century Dutch painter, Rembrandt. For questions 1–10, choose from the sections (A–D). The sections may be chosen more than once.

When, in 1950, the 11th Duke of Devonshire was hit with a massive £7 million inheritance tax bill from the Collector of Taxes in the UK, he did what many stately homeowners do and gazed up at his walls to see what art might be sold. The Duke found that he had three Rembrandts, and suggested one of them in part-payment of the tax. Thus in 1957 a fine, signed Rembrandt, Old Man in an Armchair, went on display at the National Gallery in London. Barely a decade later, however, the picture was downgraded to being painted by 'a follower of Rembrandt'. 'Imposing as the mood is,' said the art historian Horst Gerson, 'the overall structure of the picture is very weak, even contradictory with divergences not to be found in Rembrandt's portraits from this great period'. Ever since, the picture has been largely ignored. Yet recently, Ernst van de Wetering, the world's leading authority on the artist, said the picture was, after all, by Rembrandt. 'It is a very important painting,' he says, 'a painting about painting' that heralds reinvention in Rembrandt's technique in the 1650s. Van de Wetering believes Gerson made 'a vast mistake'.

The fact that Old Man in an Armchair should not be treated as a portrait commissioned by a patron is crucial here. It's an observation of life, not intended as a likeness to the patron. To help depict this, Rembrandt allowed himself greater freedom with the brush than usual. We don't need to focus on the dress, so it is painted fluidly and rapidly. The right hand is beautifully weighted: we can be sure the sitter is not holding his head but absent-mindedly touching it, as one does in pensive moments. This different opinion, however, was greeted with indifference. What had happened? Put simply, Rembrandt connoisseurship – the ability to tell who painted what by close inspection – had imploded. The Rembrandt Research Project had been established with an admirable objective: namely, to say what was and what was not a genuine Rembrandt. But two key factors spelt doom for this approach. Firstly, it tried to make attributions by relying on a committee, thus allowing for indecision and group-think to reign. Secondly, connoisseurship itself became unfashionable and was seen as a redundant, elitist practice, no longer taught as a key skill in training art historians and curators.

As the Project members began to cast doubt on the authenticity of some of Rembrandt's paintings, others joined in too, including major museum curators. Rembrandt experts became gripped with uncertainty – if opinion of picture X was no longer 'right', then surely pictures Y and Z, which were painted in a similar manner, must also be 'wrong'? Sometimes, rejections were made on the flimsiest of grounds: some paintings were downgraded, not because they didn't look like Rembrandt's late work, but because X-rays suggested that underneath the paintings there were signs of an unusual technique. And so it went on, until Van de Wetering saw that the madness had to stop. 'The Project had failed', he said, 'it was no good'. The latest 'official' number of Rembrandts is 340 which is believed by some still to be too few. It is pointed out that Van Dyck, not an especially rapid painter, is credited with about 750 works, and he died aged forty-two. Rembrandt lived until he was sixty-three.

What then continues to hold back art historians and museum curators? Rembrandt scholars have convinced themselves that Rembrandt added his signature to works painted entirely by his many studio assistants in order to make money as quickly as possible. But there is no clear evidence for this; it is a theory that has been created. Rembrandt was more scrupulous than many scholars believe. It is known that Rembrandt was aware of how sensitive the matter of attribution was for patrons – at least twice Rembrandt was asked to adjudicate on work by other artists where it was suspected that they had added their signatures to work that was not their own. There is not a single case of one of Rembrandt's studio assistants grumbling about their master passing off their work as his own. Finally, it might be asked who were all these mysterious, supremely talented 'followers of Rembrandt' who have left no trace of any independent work: is it possible that they did not exist?

How to identify a genuine Rembrandt

Many of the Dutch painter's work are still disputed by art scholars – but why are they so hard to authenticate?

a cumulative reaction?

a lack of complaints among a particular group?

a failed attempt to democratise a process?

a common method for settling a debt?

a shift in educational policy?

a scientific process used to verify an opinion?

a belief held where the negative aspects of a painting outweigh the positives on balance?

a gesture attributed to a thought process?

an opinion expressed to put an end to a trend?

a false hypothesis devised with hindsight?

Which section mentions

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