News this week from Sotheby’s of their “cross-category” evening sale in London on July 28th showcasing an early Rembrandt oil painting brought signs of renewed activity in the salerooms. And what better name to put front and center at this moment, like a battle shield against the many grim adversities roiling the art market in 2020, than Rembrandt, the gold standard of Dutch old masters.
The story of how this masterpiece was dated provides a glimpse into the realm of art and science, once a murky misalliance within the art world but now a necessity. For as Rembrandt painted some 80 self-portraits during his long career, potential bidders would want to know where precisely this undated work fits into the Rembrandt canon.
And so the painting was vetted through science.
This happened through dendrochronological analysis—or wood testing. As Sotheby’s explained in its press release, the test proved conclusively that Self-portrait, wearing a ruff and black hat, as the painting is called, could be dated “to a narrow window towards the end of 1632.” And how? Because the test revealed it was painted on a panel cut from the same Baltic oak tree as another picture from that precise period.
This reminded me of a similar test we had performed a few years ago in a London dendrochronology lab for a rare viola of uncertain date and value. Its owner had played the instrument for four decades as principal violist for the New York Philharmonic. He believed it was made by the master Gasparo da Salò in Brescia, Italy, in the 16th century. But there was no proof.
At least not until dendrochronological analysis showed that the wood in the viola dated to around 1585, when da Salò was active. This tantalizing result was then fed into the lab’s impressive data base—probably in the same manner as with the Rembrandt self-portrait—to see if there was a match with any other instruments known to be made by da Salò. And there was. Our viola, and the other instrument in the data base, had come from the same tree in the late 16th century.
Amidst the tragic and transformative events of the past week throughout America, now may be the perfect time for this Rembrandt self-portrait, measuring a mere 8-5/8 x 6-3/8 inches and carrying a robust estimate of $15-20 million, to make its appearance on the world stage.
It is a ghostly relic of the past, appealing to but a tiny segment of possible buyers. But it is also a potent symbol of an art market steeped in tradition and hoping for a much-needed return to form.