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WORLD> Europe
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'Rembrandt Laughing' is self-portrait
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-06-19 17:42 The auction's winner may have suspected the painting was a genuine Rembrandt from the monogram RHL, painted in a rare style that the artist only used for about a year. It stands for Rembrandt Harmenszoon of Leiden. The auction house wrote the signature as "HL" in its assessment. The initials become more compelling proof when considering that they were painted onto the wet paint of the background, and that the direction of the brush strokes match another monogram known to be Rembrandt's. Experts also were confused by the shape of the laughing Rembrandt's body. The clothing -- a woolly blanket, metal armor and glossy shirt -- appear amorphous, lying in lumpy folds with little description of the anatomy below. Yet the contour has a character of its own, one that is repeated in some of his later works. "If you look at this contour, it has a certain autonomy," Van de Wetering said, adding that it may have been one of the first times Rembrandt tested out this way of painting the body. The thin copper plate on which the piece is painted matches in size and type with others used in other Rembrandt paintings. X-rays reveal a second painting underneath -- its content and composition also consistent with other Rembrandt works. It is unclear where the painting had been before 1800, when a Flemish engraver made a reproductive print and attributed the original to the Dutch painter Frans Hals without realizing the face in the picture was that of Rembrandt. "After that there is silence about the painting; we don't know where it stayed," Van de Wetering said. |
