Is There a Rembrandt at Catholic University?

We have an original Rembrandt. We would love to be authenticated as easily as they were. Here is our story.

This portrait was bought in 1970 by Edward & Patricia Andersen at a used furniture store in Lacey Washington, called Reed’s Roundhouse 2ND Hand Store. Harlan and Ruth Reed purchased the portrait, among other items, from Killingsworth Auction Co. In Portland, Oregon. The painting was amongst other items that were put into storage in 1914 by the Maryhill family, of the Maryhill Museum, built by it’s owner Sam Hill, the famous wealthy industrialist. Sam Hill had friends such as the likes of Loie Fuller (internationally known dancer), Queen Marie of Romania, and heiress Alma Spreckles. He was known for entertaining many European guests. He dealt with prestigious pieces of art.

It is a mixed media work, made up of charcoal, red & black chalk, bistre wash, water color & India ink on paper. This was determined from a spectrographic analysis done by the Boeing Aero-Space Laboratories. It is a completed piece. It is ½ length. The size is 19″in. X 14″in., and is under glass. Technically it is a drawing, but because of the materials Rembrandt employed, it could be called a painting. The materials used in our drawing are the same used in the only two other completed chalk drawings by Rembrandt, both dated 1634. They are “Portrait of a Man in an Armchair Seen Through a Frame”, and “Christ and His Disiples”. (all ½ lengths). Ours may be the most complete work on paper that Rembrandt did.

There is a signature in the upper left corner signed: Rembrandt 1634

There is a tag on the back of the portrait that says Beards Art Gallery-at Daytons (7th & Nicollet) Minneapolis, with the letter B, and the number 1607. The “B” means that it was framed for an individual person, and the number means it was framed sometime before 1905. Their records were destroyed in a fire, so they could not give us a name.

The same portrait hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It is done in oil on canvas, and is somewhat larger. They call it “Titus”. It is a copy of ours.

We bought a copy of the portrait in the Metropolitan Museum. Photographs were taken of both portraits, and black & white positives were made. The positives were made to the same size/dimensions. When overlaid together, The Portraits matched identically on their perimeters of the subject, the eyes, nose & lips etc. also match perfectly. The inside brush strokes, crazing, etc. did not. Our piece has random crazing throughout the body & background. The metropolitans crazing is horizontal throughout, as it would if someone had rolled it that way on purpose, maybe to try to attain a look of age. Our face has NO crazing, as it appears to have been applied dry, a known Rembrandt technique. This shows that the two portraits had to be in the possession of the same person(s) at the same time at one point, and that one is definitely a copy of the other. It isn’t possible for two artists, not knowing each other, to paint the same subject where both paintings match identically in outline and body. Both pieces were together at one point, and a copy of ours was made in oil.

Our Portrait has a wear spot extending up and down from the edge of the hat. It is a worn area on the painting. The metropolitan’s painting is described as a “feather”. First of all, the hat would not support a feather in that position. The copyist painted only what he saw, and thought the wear spot was originally a feather. It is outside of the under base white. There also is a smudge on our chalk drawing beneath the right eye of the figure. This smudge is painted in as a shaded area on the Metropolitan’s oil, even though the light source is from that side. There can be no painterly reason for this. Again, the copyist painted approx. 200+ years of wear into his rendition.

Ours is dated 1634. The Metropolitan’s is dated 1655. Again, the copyist painted only what he could see, as our date is worn. Visually, the 3 & 4 are incomplete, and look like they were possibly “5’s”. The true date of 1634 was brought out with special photography. It took approx. 200+ years for our date to partially wear away. Remember, ours is a mixed media work, and subject to wear more so than an oil painting.

The Metropolitan Museum states their painting to be “Titus”, Rembrandts son, who at 1655 would be about age 14. Ours was painted 7 years Before Titus was born. Titus was born in 1641. Recent news in the last year or two, shows a Rembrandt that was authenticated which is owned by the Norton Simon Foundation. Their painting is almost identical to ours, except the subject (portrait) is younger. It very well could be a relative to ours. The Norton Simon Rembrandt is titled “Boy In Fancy Dress”. It shockingly resembles our piece.

Rembrandt is known for doing most of his large works on paper between 1632 & 1638. One example is the “Lamentation Over The Dead Christ”. It is called a “Study”. The media used are the same used in ours. Also, “Christ Before Pilate and the People”, called a study.

Rembrandt Scholars call all of Rembrandts works on paper “Studies” or “Sketches”.Malcom Bell, a noted Rembrandt expert, mentions in his book “Studies” of Titus, ONE of which is in the collection of Rudolph Kann. We know of no other drawings or studies mentioned in the Kann Collection. We believe ours is the same painting that went through the hands of the Duveen brothers (known for questionable art practices). It was eventually donated to the Metropolitan Museum from the Benjamin Altman Estate as a bequest sometime around or after 1913. There is no History on the Metropolitan’s painting earlier than 1897. Somewhere the study of Titus in the Kann Collection became a full oil painting on canvas before it was donated to the Metropolitan by the Benjamin Altman estate.

The Metropolitan Museum states that they believe their painting was not done by Rembrandt. They state that it was done by “a weaker hand”. Our letter from John Walsh, curator of the Metropolitan in the 1970’s , says they “doubt the authenticity of their painting”. They show their painting on their website and title it “Titus” “Style of Rembrandt”. Experts say probably a late 18th or 19th century rendering.! Why do they proudly portray a 19th Century Copy of a weaker hand?

We have done a 4-color seperation on our painting. The Red color seperation shows that ours was free hand drawn. You can see the continuous red chalk color going from the eye to the nose down into the lips, etc. You can see the same style lines drawn in Harvard University professor Dr. Seymor Slives books on Rembrandt.

The very techniques that Rembrandt used also are used on our painting, including materials, and even the scratching down to the paper to use the white paper underbase as highlights in the subject. He did this with the eyes of our drawing, as well as the glisten on the lip and the white on the tunic. These are verified by Boeing Scientific Lab Reports.

The crazing on our painting has no distinct pattern. The crazing on the Metropolitan’s is Horizontal. This was done by “rolling the canvas”, which is a crude way of “aging a canvas”. On our painting, the face was applied dry, so there is no crazing, no swelling. The gown and background were applied wet (bistre wash) . Again, both paintings perimeter outlines match perfectly, but the inside crazing does not. When the copyist made the oil, he could not apply the face dry or match our crazing, he could only match the perimeter, eyes, lips, nose, etc. of the subject.

Why make an oil copy? Oil paintings were considered more valuable, more durable, and perhaps the copyist wanted to steal “without stealing the physical painting itself”. Also, it appears that the Duveen Brothers had connections to sell the copy as an original to someone, with the appearance of legitimacy. Bernard Benson was employed by Duveen as an “art expert”, who authenticated works that Duveen sold. A conflict of interest?

There are under drawings on our painting, some small and large. Cherub, Lamb, & Man with a staff to mention a few. There also appears to be a sketch of an old king, similar to the one Rembrandt used many times in other works. There is also another signature and a date of 1633, which was seen with a Florascope test done at Pacific Luthern University in Seattle. The date was somewhere in the left shoulder area of the subject. It was quite common to sketch/draw on paper & then cover over it and do a final work, as paper was quite valuable and harder to come by in the 1600’s. These under drawings were brought out with x-ray negatives. Remember, these tests were done with 1970’s technology. What we could find & see with today’s technology could be astounding.

We believe our painting possibly started out in the Antonio Flinck collection, and also passed through the collection of King William the 2nd, possibly the Brondgeest collection, several others, and finally, it made it to the Rudolph Kann collection where it is noted by experts as a “Study”.

Again, the drawing is on paper. It has been dated by Mr. Harold Sundene of Olympia, and formerly with the Washington State Printing Office, a noted authority on dating old documents and paper. He stated it to be the type of paper used in Holland at that time, 300+ years ago. It was also analyzed by the Boeing Co., and found to be paper and materials not used in modern day. Also, Thomas Ness of the State of Washington department of Printing also certifies that the painting is an actual rendering and not a mechanical reproduction.

Rembrandt has employed in our drawing his technique of the Lost Outline, a technique for which he is noted. The body portion of the drawing seems to nearly blend into the dark background.

Horst Gerson, a Rembrandt expert, said about the Metropolitan’s oil “never doubted in the literature on Rembrandt”, though Gerson also stated about the Metropolitan’s painting as “Certainly an eighteenth or nineteenth century imitation. In other words, he was saying that the subject in the Metropolitan exists, just not in the Metropolitan. This means somewhere in the writings about Rembrandt, our work of art is mentioned as an original work done by Rembrandt on paper and called a “Study”.

Our evidence for our painting is quite substantial, and, very real. We have more proof to authenticate our painting than most paintings are ever subjected to. We welcome any one or any institution to put our portrait under the scrutiny of new technology. The results will only be even better.

The Metropolitan Museum hangs a copy of ours in it’s museum. We have the original.

D.C. Williams of WA 5:46AM February 04, 2010