Rijksmuseum reveals painting to be early work by Rembrandt | Art

The painting, which hung unrecognized on the wall of a private home for decades, has now been revealed to be a 17th-century Rembrandt, pushing its potential value from thousands of pounds to millions of pounds.

Thanks to high-tech scanning and two years of expert analysis, the Dutch master has rediscovered an ancient Biblical scene once thought lost, the Rijksmuseum announced Monday.

Since the 1960s, the 1633 Vision of Zacharias in the Temple has been attributed to Rembrandt’s “workshop,” meaning it was believed to have been created by a lesser-known artist such as Jan Lievens or Salomon Koninck.

However, the Dutch museum, which is preparing to exhibit the painting this week, announced that it is actually the work of an old master. Taco Dibbits, general manager of the Rijksmuseum, said they were approached a few years ago by a couple who had inherited a modest-looking painting from their father.

“It was really dark,” Dibbits said. “But when it was restored, I came to see it and it really looked like the gold was bursting out of it, which is remarkable, of course, because he painted in yellow, not gold. That’s what makes the artist a true artist… A classic Rembrandt.”

The painting depicts the biblical story of the high priest Zechariah, who is visited by the archangel Gabriel and tells him that he and his wife – despite their advanced age – will have a son named John, later named John the Baptist. There is no angel, just a bright light in a corner and the priest’s disbelieving face.

Jonathan Bikker, curator of 17th-century Dutch painting at the Rijksmuseum and author of an academic article Burlington Magazine The finding was extraordinary, he said of the attribution. He and the paper’s co-author, Petria Noble, argue that the painting was discredited in 1969 by scholar Horst Gerson and later researchers at the Rembrandt Research Project, based on lower-resolution photographs rather than examination of the work itself.

However, the Rijksmuseum matched the paint pigments to works by Rembrandt van Rijn from the same period. Macro X-ray fluorescence The scans showed typical changes in composition, and analysis of the wood panel also showed that the painting dates to 1633.

The owners of the work, who did not want their names to be disclosed but were understood to be European, said that their father bought the work from the art dealer P de Boer in Amsterdam in 1961.

“It was as if there was a gray blanket over the painting,” Bikker said. “They had already started the conservation process and wanted to know who it was so their restorers could look at other paintings. If it belonged to Jan Lievens, they could look at Jan Lievens.”

He added that they did not dare to believe that this could really have been painted by a young Rembrandt.

“The couple that owned it brought it here and they were joking around,” he said. “‘Look how big that signature is. It must be Rembrandt’s! It says Rembrandt in big letters!’ However, the fact that it was a real Rembrandt was a surprise to them, because as soon as the father bought it, this feature was abandoned.”

Although the Rijksmuseum does not comment on value, “Rembrandt’s workshop” paintings are often worth tens or hundreds of thousands of euros. By contrast, the Rijksmuseum recently purchased a Rembrandt for €175 million (£153 million). With the addition of The Vision of Zacharias, the temple will display 25 Rembrandts, the world’s largest collection, starting Wednesday.