Doing 'justice to Rembrandt'

August 27 2014

Video: National Trust

I reported earlier this summer the National Trust's recent re-discovery of a Rembrandt self-portrait at Buckland Abbey; but I've only just seen the above video, where they show some of the x-rays of the picture, and its conservation. Most interesting, perhaps, are the (all too brief) comments from the pre-eminent Rembrandt scholar Ernst van der Wetering, who speaks of his desire to 'do justice to Rembrandt' when uncovering his lost works. This might sound a bit daft, but it's a motivation I recognise; when I see a good painting that's been unjustly downgraded, I often feel the need to act as the artist's posthumous champion. Of course, the same goes for bad pictures that have been wrongly upgraded.

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