Autograph Training Evaluation Made Easy

Autograph training evaluation

hello on behalf of the allentown art museum i'd like to welcome you to tonight's program revealing rembrandt the art and science of conservation i'm elaine mihalakis vice president of curatorial affairs and the curator of the exhibition rembrandt revealed thank you for joining us and for sharing in this important moment for the museum we're so pleased to have the chance to share rembrandt's portrait of a young woman with allentown art museum supporters members visitors and friends in february of 2018 the museum sent the 1632 portrait of a young woman then attributed to rembrandt's workshop to the conservation center of the institute of fine arts new york university where it underwent nearly two years of study and conservation we thank the samuel h cress foundation for making this and the conservation of other works from the crest collection possible my backdrop features a late 1930s photograph of the library of samuel cress's apartment in new york where you can see a portrait of a young woman over my shoulder sean crong assistant conservator and research scholar at the conservation center conducted the conservation of this painting her thoroughness and examination and insightfulness and interpretation led to greater knowledge and understanding of rembrandt's portrait of a young woman we are fortunate to be able to hear directly from her tonight thank you sean for all of your thoughtful work thank you also to diane dwyer modestini clinical professor in the crest program in paintings conservation without whom this project would not have happened sean kwon is assistant conservator and research scholar at the conservation center of the institute of fine arts new york university she completed her graduate training in the conservation of easel paintings at the hamilton care institute university of cambridge she received her bachelor of science in chemistry from yale university in 2011. previously she was a postgraduate intern at the national gallery of art in washington dc other conservation experiences include work placements at the royal collection trust simon bobac conservation and yale university art gallery as part of the crest program and paintings conservation sean researches and treats old master paintings from the samuel h crest collection and participates in the teaching of graduate students she and clinical professor diane odostini working with the crest foundation and cng partners are in the process of creating an interactive website to house open access restoration images technical studies and reports so that they will be available to colleagues and to the interested public we will have time for questions after sean's presentation so please submit your questions via the chat function at any time during the talk and we'll get to as many as we can sean i'll turn it over to you i just realized that all right thank you um thank you so much elaine for the introduction um it's lovely to see everyone here tonight and i appreciate the opportunity to speak to you about the art and science of conservation i feel which i care deeply about i recommend increasing your screen brightness to maximum if you can naturally with such a so much black in the painting some details might be difficult to see beginning early 2018 i had the pleasure of carrying out the examination and treatment of this captivating sketch we were able to gain new insights into the painting's execution and crucially corrected some prior misinterpretations regarding the facture of this work it was reassessed with fresh eyes various evidence and opinions from experts were gathered which ultimately led the museum to reassert a traditional attribution to rembrandt himself the announcement caused quite the sudden clamor however the journey itself involved the accumulation of small discoveries through conservation treatment scientific analysis and close looking with this talk i hope to shed light on some of that process the work was carried out at the conservation center of the institute of fine arts new york university recently we marked the 30th year of the long-standing crest program established under the direction of clinical professor diane monistini it is a unique partnership with the crest foundation which serves to educate the next generation the old master painting conservators and ensures the conservation of invaluable artworks in the dispersed crest collection since the program's inception in 1989 over 250 artworks have received full treatment and study among them at least 16 paintings from the allentown art museum and these should look very familiar to you all um in fact my first project upon rival here was this gem of an adoration by agostino downloading in the lower left corner in the studio classroom students and staff evaluate the often complex problems that affect old master paintings consider various interventions and interact with institutional owners and scholars we often receive a number of works that embody these complexities perhaps none more so than the sketch attributed to rembrandt it is indeed a case study in dealing with a complex attribution question later this year well uh it turns out next month um i'm you will have the opportunity to hear from various art historians about rembrandt connoisseurship the exhibition itself will address some of the painting's history so i thought i might focus more on what conservation entails how it could contribute to the attribution discussion what kind of questions can it answer and where are its limitations participating context the work is painted on an oval oak panel fully signed and dated and in excellent condition rather than a portrait it is a fanciful sketch known as a tronee unlike commissioned portraits of known sitters trones often depicted people in fanciful costumes and were intended as studies of expression type or interesting characters such as an old man or a young woman the painting is an early work the young model is referred to as rembrandt's sister though her identity is still up for speculation she was painted at various times during the young rembrandt's first two years in amsterdam as seen in this group with varying and ever-changing levels of acceptance among scholars the allentown picture was first recorded to be in the duke d'orleans collection as by rembrandt from as early as 1727 there it had been made into a pair with another portrait by rembrandt of the same year which now resides in glasgow and etching records the appearance of both pictures while it's in the collection to be noted though much of the volume and folds within the black costume may have been enhanced by the engraver the picture together with its pondon subsequently resided at petware house england for much of the 19th century before making its trip across the atlantic despite the fact that it had been accepted in the past by all major scholars as rembrandt its autograph status was first questioned in 1969 by two members of the rembrandt research project at the time the exceptionally darkened varnish coatings and muddy restorations were impeding the proper evaluation of the work especially when attribution comes down to the subtle details some of their published observations can be flawed which would be expected when carrying out a full assessment under such circumstance their primary criticism was the perceived absence of distinct brush work in the face and they expressed confusion over the costume they also questioned the inscription though archived letters suggested conflicting conclusions within the group this was still the consensus when the painting arrived at the conservation center until recently over a 50-year period no other scholar had reviewed this painting in person and given their opinion this perhaps speaks to the greater issue of the lack of scholarly attention towards smaller museums situated outside of metropolitan areas as part of the as part of most old master paintings life cycle it would have been um varnished with a natural resin to saturate the surface it yellows over time it is then removed and reapplied about every 50 to 100 years when the painting came to our studio it had an excessive number of varnish coatings that darken significantly and turned opaque they fluoresce strongly in blue or green when examined with uv light this phenomenon flattens the range of tonal values and all the subtle transitions the portrait might have displayed the prize golden glow associated with rembrandt in his late years however the brown varnish was rather ill-suited to show off the skilled use of alternating warm and cool hues often expected for his early work it's important to keep in mind that our perception of old master paintings is not only through the lens of age such as the natural degradation materials but also through various changing fashions and tastes imposed upon these pictures shortly after the panel's acquisition by the crest foundation in 1930 it was restored by stephen picado it appears that the multitude of varnish applications was carried out in an attempt to conceal the texture of the paint surface as was the taste of some restores and collectors in the early 20th century akin to a mirrored surface in this case simply layering coats of damar and shellac resins was not enough to bury these brushworks in fact a thick molasses-like mixture of dimar varnish had to be poured as a final layer resulting in drip marks and tightline ridges throughout also clearly visible in uv light this resulted in varnish coatings often thicker than paint films and bestowed the surface and improv in an inappropriate polished appearance after the removal of these degraded varnish layers so are gone their overpowering fluorescence it makes way to observe the more subtle characteristic fluorescence of pigments in the original paint for example where the red lake is used in high proportions the brush stroke has a striking pink fluorescence the artist painted the black cape with thin glazes of bone black mixed with red lake both translucent pigments this technique was often employed by skilled painters to create an incredibly warm and rich black i carried out varnish removal with a mixture of solvents that dissolve layers of degraded resin but left the original paint unaffected by nature old and cross-linked oil paint is much more chemically resistant this was an extremely satisfying process at this stage we begin to recover the intended appearance of the painting in addition to increased contrast there is a wider range of warm and cool hues a greater diversity of textures and sharper pictorial details before it was akin to looking through an extremely filthy hazy and muddy windshield after cleaning the highlights get brighter the darks get deeper the jewel details get crisper the lace colors are cooler and the warm flushes in the face stand out against the light flesh tones the delicate brushwork and subtle variations of the flesh tones can be appreciated there is a liveliness to the pain application that point to skillful execution it was the moment of truth so to speak because while a dark varnish can mask the appearance of high quality brushwork it can also give cover to a subpar painting there's nowhere to hide now fortunately i think we can make a strong case for the former the cleaning allowed for a much more accurate assessment and interpretation of the picture some observations previously published by the rembrandt research project one could argue were flawed in one way or another among others examination of the clean picture no longer supports the following claims the headdress and bow are the only places with paint impasto that the fact that there is only one vaguely indicated lace color in fact there are two distinct layers that the dark gray suggests a split in the sleeve actually it's a false detail created by respirations which i'll touch on later as you can see here the majority of the painting was revealed to be an excellent state of preservation there were only minute losses and abrasions in the paint which appear as dark thin vertical lines especially in the face they are small damages but these dark streaks do interrupt the subtle transition of tones i retouched them so that they no longer interfere in addition to color matching such impainting requires a light touch so that they do not appear heavier than original paint which has an exceptionally clear and translucent quality almost like enamel the execution is consistent with it being a sketch rather than worked up portrait by a short and competent hand the lighting and fanciful costume also evoke casual experimentation the model is frontally lit and slightly from above the soft cast shadows of the nose and chin and the illumination of the lace are consistent with this accordingly the outlines of her face her hair piece and her shoulders gently recede from light in addition to the front of the picture we also had to address its back uh and the structural issues related to the wooden panel at the time of its acquisition in 1930 the restorer stephen picato also applied this heavy mahogany cradle to the reverse of the support again this was due to the taste of restorers and collectors in the past who prefer to force the picture flat it obliterates any natural curvature of the wood often at the expense of its long-term structural integrity this is not a procedure we would consider these days upon examination we could already see the faint crack along the panel joint and evidence that the heavy cradle might be creating further problems after much discussion ella miller of the department of painting conservation at the metropolitan removed the cradle as seen here i can count on one hand the number of specialists in north america who can do this type of work and we're so blessed that alan happens to be a very generous colleague and situated nearby during the process of treatment we were able to uncover evidence regarding the original format of the painting and subsequent changes it had always been conceived as an oval as indicated by the exposed and unpainted panel edge along the bottom and swift incisions in the paint outlining the shape it's a beautiful detail which was made by scratching the butt of the brush into the original paint while it was still wet the left and right edges are capped with wood additions which are not original to the painting they were most likely added while in the collection of the do corleon there the oval shape was slightly modified in order to match the shape and dimension of its paired male counterpart this is also the reason the current shape is not a perfect oval and a little wonky despite previous doubt cast by the rembrandt research project we were able to determine through analysis that the signature is indeed genuine integral to the picture and has not been added later especially in this early period in amsterdam signatures matter the inscription rhl van reine 1632 founded on the allentown picture was only employed during a brief transitional period moving from using the monogram to his full name as argued by preeminent scholars this alone reduces the chance that it was added by later hand since a knowledge of the transformation that rembrandt's signature underwent can scarcely be expected of later imitators or forgers in other words this is a compelling compelling piece of evidence that points to rembrandt's involvement with this picture for your reference below are details taken from unquestioned works by rembrandt it is an incredibly good signature i even found a letter in the crest archive where a scholar wrote off the painting but did the mental gymnastics that perhaps a follower of rembrandt painted the whole picture around an authentic signature in the present day we're not yet aware of any rembrandt specialist who doubts the authenticity of the inscription again for comparison i'm not showing you an example of a very bad signature that i've encountered on a painting by a contemporary of rembrandt it's probably added at least a century later it's thin and barely legible it superficially floats on top of aged paint it flows across old paint damages and importantly it's the wrong type of signature given the early dating of 1631 in addition to close looking we were able to gain further insights into technical uh using technical imaging one type is x-radiography as you see here x-rays travel through the entire structure allowing us to see the density of all the paint layers especially those below the surface any paint mixture containing lead white pigment which blocks x-rays shows up as bright spots some of the early doubt that was cast on the allentown picture often cited an x-ray taken in 1930 by alan burrow and his written analysis he perceived that the x-ray lacked distinct brushwork and anatomical forms his premise that attribution questions can be objectively and scientifically resolved by solely comparing shadowgraphs is now considered to be extremely flawed nevertheless his notes were subsequently given significant weight we were able to re-evaluate with fresh eyes and this time with more sophisticated imaging technology here you have the side-by-side comparison of the 1930 shadowgraph and the one taken a year ago this is a clear there is a clear difference in the distribution of light and dark in the face distinct crisp brushwork which many scholars lamented were absent in the old x-ray is clearly evident throughout there were technical limitations with ellen burrows x-ray which may have affected the interpretation of paint application with traditional film it was especially difficult to obtain a high contrast in focus exposure with the dense wooden cradle also interfering with the final image on the other hand the digital setup we have does not have this limitation by overlaying the x-ray with the visible image we can easily visualize the various adjustments made by the artist from the initial stage to the final image we can also make observations about the artist's technique in building up the paint layers for example in many areas the brownish-orange color of the oak panel was left intentionally exposed by the artist to create dark shadows and to impart a warm tone in the x-ray they are clearly visible as dark gaps for instance in her chin back of the neck and along the gold chains and pearls another reveal feature is the bold and loose brush work that was part of the initial sketching they confidently laid in and defined the volume of her proper right sleeve the overlay also shows a much lower initial positioning of the proper right shoulder the contour was redefined and elevated in later stages of painting as per rembrandt's typical approach the artist painted from back to front meaning he filled in the first background around a large empty reserve left for the figure this is clearly illustrated by the dark silhouette around the head and shoulder in the x-ray this is another in misinterpretation we were able to correct in his report ellen burrows wrongly assumed the initial drawing of the head being disproportionately wide due to misunderstanding rembrandt's painting practices as is expected the scholarship and the understanding of rembrandt's techniques have evolved significantly since the 30s another imaging technique is called infrared reflectography it looks beneath the visible layers and detects materials that absorb infrared radiation such as carbon containing pigments this technique often helps reveal preparatory drawings or initial sketching in the under layers here some drawn lines are visible marking out the girl's facial features this limited drawing bears strong resemblance to that found in another portrait of the same model by rembrandt originally the dark costume most likely appeared as a sketch with loose brushwork consistent with how the face was executed parts of her dress was laden with dark underpaint with the outline of her bust clearly visible in infrared the area was subsequently covered by the black over garment with only a portion of the dress visible where it parts in the middle as with the sketching seen the x-ray there is a boldness in the brushwork of this initial sketching on the topic of the costume um this is how it appeared after initial varnish removal but before the removal of unoriginal repainting it was in short contrast to the beautifully preserved untouched state found elsewhere in the picture and historically it caused much confusion in the 70s the rembrandt research project gave abundant focus to the lack of clarity in the depiction of the clothing a letter to the crest foundation stated the dress is the most curious mixture of ill-understood 1632 fashion and fancy elements indeed certain elements of the costume did not seem characteristic however features of the original paint began to reveal themselves during treatment and help make sense of this all prior reports failed to mention the true condition of the costume and the amount of repaint present this is also understandable oversight given the difficulty of seeing through thick degraded varnish originally the dark costume most likely appeared as a sketch with loose brushwork composed of thin glazes containing richly colored bone black mixed with red lake this would have been susceptible to cleaning and suffered abrasion over time wholesale toning and over painting with a dollar black was carried out in the past to address the damage some of these illogical paint strokes also created false forms and clumsy details many months of analysis and research revealed the extent of this early intervention examination under high magnification and cross-section analysis helped confirm that many alterations are not contemporary with the painting on the left we see the original paint with crisp brush work and sharp age cracks on the right the smeared repaint is muddy in appearance and completely covers the crack lure i proceeded to remove this dull repaint carefully with the aid of the microscope in terms of treatment this stage was probably the most laborious however it was extremely worthwhile to unveil the quality of the original paint although the costume was somewhat abraded it was possible to close the losses with minimal retouching some questions also surrounded this decorative sash composed of crisp white green and ochre highlights initially it seemed out of place however this only appeared to be the case in context of a very defined shape floating in a field of muddy swampy repainting it created a cognitive misuse in people who studied it the conservation treatment helped alleviate this issue a bit i didn't have to travel far to find a comparative example and realized that this costing component was by no means stylistically out of place and these are some microscope details of the beautifully bold yet refined highlights look at the dabs of yellow highlights which have an unmixed streak of red in the stroke these sketch lines are organic and so diverse in texture i have found no evidence to question their status as being original to the painting though the artist depicts a fantasy costume the forms and draping of individual components should still be sensible taking a step back the picture did begin to come together for me the sitter wears a black over garment and layered lace collars with a transparent neckerchief and a gold chain looped around her neck three times an embroidered undergarment is visible at the front and it is gathered with a belt with a silver gray bow the all-star cast of fancy elements is in stark contrast to the carefree approach the outfit was assembled the lower collar completely askew the end of the chain hang free the untidy curled edges of the lace the casually turned over rough of the black coat these all point to pieces of clothing and accessories being piled onto the model in a fanciful and whimsical manner and intentionally so disassembly does not appear to stem from a simple misunderstanding of fashion by an unskilled imitator for those who love the look of the head but not so much the costume there had been proposals that the costume was left for another person perhaps an assistant to finish and work up to completion however i have not found this explanation to be convincingly supported by technical analysis for one the costume remains sketch-like and is not by any means worked up to a high finish various features within the clothing have previously been described as indistinct internal detail in relief cleaning revealed that they were in fact original imposter brushwork that sketched the volume of the dress some heavy impasto also relates to the lip and ruffles of the black over garment these textures are crucial to the visual reading of the forms and have previously been completely buried by the poured varnish the loose and swift handling of the paint are either evident in the x-ray or infrared it's also worth noting that the green colors are created by mixing blue azurite and yellow ochre pigments a technique typical of rembrandt and his close contemporaries technical analysis can reveal a great deal about the materials and painting techniques employed however ultimately there are some nuanced attribution questions where one can only gain insight through closed looking after all we would expect rembrandt's assistants and contemporaries to have access to the same artist materials there is rarely a silver bullet unfortunately it is worth noting that in amsterdam rembrandt was admired for his subtle rendering of flesh tones and controlled and control of light and dark what he also had was range on the left is a portrait brought up to extremely high finish where the face is modeled with smoothly blended strokes and the pastel's paint is built up thickly throughout on the right the execution appears to be much swifter the orange preparation is left directly showing especially in her hair where there are only a few wisps of dark paint in the later decades the rembrandt research project changed your methodology to move away from strict application of stylistic criteria rather a painting is not only an image but above all the result of a multi-faceted process of creation in a specific context with close looking many insights can be gained about the process and context of creation examination of the paint layers indicate this painting is a sketch rather than a worked up portrait but executed by a sure and competent hand there is no directly observed nor material evidence that multiple hands were at play in sculpting the face a diversity of texture transparency and color adjusted position is employed to achieve a range of effects there is clear use of alternating warm and cool colors in the modeling of the face warm shadows cool halftones warm lights and cool highlights the warm tone of the preparation is exploited to create shadows in many passages such as the jawline the back of the neck around the eyes adjusting it with thin scumbles that blend seamlessly with the highlights in the layered laces the paint buildup clearly indicates that disassembly was planned from the start rather than the result of stages of adjustments and changes the gold chain is painted in reserve directly on top of the gold brown preparation not over delays dabs of paint indicating the lower semi-visible lace color in fact sit on top the latter is a detail that scholars had historically missed not understanding that there are meant to be two separate colors one stacked on top of another in a whimsical manner it's intentionally a fanciful costume a game of dress up in a artist's studio now to get up she can stroll around in the streets of 17th century amsterdam though different appearance from warped up portraits some have argued that it is consonant with rembrandt's handling in early stages of painting even as a sketch there appears to be a similar character that is echoed the cursory and swift manner of execution of the back of the lace collar and the hair again appears to be consonant with rembrandt's paint handling and sketching i had the opportunity to work in close consultation with dorothy mann a painting conservator at the metropolitan who has great expertise in the study and treatment of works by rembrandt i am greatly indebted to her for providing generous and invaluable guidance over the course of this project in this instance she sees the cursory handling of the curled up lace as a strength of a highly skilled painter rather than being a sign of weakness this painting had a long been overdue for re-examination as a result of the study and opinions of scholars who have evaluated the new findings there was a strong basis to reassert the traditional attribution of the painting to rembrandt rembrandt scholarship is complex and constantly evolving even today there remains uncertainties about how the workshop functioned around 1632 to keep the discussion going around this picture the open access rembrandt database created by the netherlandish institute for art history has now been updated with new technical documents and reports which will further invite scholarly evaluation from the wider community um so now i'm happy to take questions but before that um i would very much like to give thanks to diamotosteenie dorothy mann um without whom this you know wouldn't have been possible and um many thanks to everyone in allentown elaine max david chris amanda abigail who have done so much work to kind of you know bring this exhibition um into place and also um i would like to thank the many art historians who've either visited and given their advice or evaluated the material and given their opinion among whom uh included arthur wheelock stephanie dickey christopher brown mary ainsworth uh adam eaker ronnie bayer and um i'm sure that uh elaine will give you information you might hear from some of them uh at the next installation of um dynamic conservation so stay tuned thank you so much sean that was wonderful um if i could start with a question for you i'm wondering about um the materials that you used for retouching and if you could speak to how those compare with what would have been used originally in the studio in the 17th century yeah um the reason it was so the retouching um the old uh repainting was difficult to remove was because they were likely done in oil paint or you know resin containing oil paint um back in the days reversibility was not really an issue or attendant at the forefront of you know restoration the goal was just to make things look better and with the thing with oil paint is the longer ages the more chemically resistant it becomes so um don't usually the older something i'm removing the more difficult it is um so with that in mind um nowadays you know a central tenet of conservation is reversibility um so the retouching material i use is actually pigment ground and resin and that is completely soluble and will come off with the next time someone cleans the painting so it will just be all gone but that's the nature of what i do yeah and a lot of people have been so excited about this information of course um as we all have um but they've often asked them sort of when was the eureka moment and you know the way i describe it from my perspective of the whole process was you know that was a quite a slow process and very carefully done very thoughtfully done and that there were a lot there was a lot of information and a lot of opinions um that contributed to sort of this moment where we feel confident in speaking to the attribution of the painting um and and in sharing and transparently all of the information that we have with our our viewers so i'm wondering for you as the conservator working so closely on this um how did your view of the painting evolve during the course of you know conducting these examinations and the conservation yeah yeah um so with any treatment um you know often different paintings have different levels of like questions surrounding their attributions you know sometimes they have a name attached to them sometimes it's just a school of uh something but with every treatment we do um part of that is research and just soliciting opinions from scholars because scholarship constantly evolves but also whenever a treatment is carried out the appearance and um you know the appearance changes and the ability for people to assess it has changed so it's always good to constantly look at anything with fresh eyes for me um you know it's worth keeping in the back of the mind that this picture had traditionally always been attributed to rembrandt and it's a little bit of bad luck that around the time the painting entered allentown's collection that was the moment when the renburg research project you know like examine it and you know questioned it so that was basically their opinion is what and their observations that were published was what i had to go um off of uh in terms of like why it's not rembrandt and as i'm cleaning it and i'm able to observe the [Music] the kind of the paint build up the materials um some of the observations are actually just you know turned out to be not quite true or um you know or just slightly flawed and that's you know when i kind of when i'm what i'm reading is not matching to what i'm seeing that's when kind of alarm house began to come up and that and the fact that it is just i find a very beautiful uh exquisite picture so um and you know as we invited showed it to more and more people you know um they didn't seem to question it the way that the rembrandt research project had so you know and it just sort of began to gain more and more steam from there yeah we have a question uh when did reversibility become a self-conscious part of conservation science i don't know um so it it really the traditions um are so different depending from you know um from continent to continent and country to country and i feel every sort of region have their own sort of conservation tradition and there's been many phd thesis and many books written about um you know this kind of thing uh but in the duker orleans collection which is an interesting tidbit um there's many things that happened in that collection which have been notorious for their kind of heavy-handed intervention so in france all the paintings that just were automatically transferred from panel onto canvas very invasive procedure that actually i think stemmed from that collection um at least in this states um just because it's quite you know a young country and and the fact of tradition here is actually doesn't go quite far back reversibility in some way has had always been part of um a conscious part of conservation um although it's not you know one cannot be too much of a curious about it because you know if pain is popping off and you know i want to consolidate it and keep it uh give it structural integrity you know like how reversible do i want that to be um so but it is something that um yeah um i think once conservators became like a profession in this um well not this century i guess in the previous century um that's sort of when it happened uh you know in the days of like uh 18th 19th centuries when you have famous artists like reynolds um also kind of working as a restorer you know that was really not at the forefront of their mind yeah so i hope i answered that question somewhat that's really interesting um and i might be asking you to speculate here um but do you think it's possible that um some of the over painting on this portrait might have been done as far back as the 18th century when it was in the duke orleans collection um in the costume um yes um actually some of them i mean it's very difficult to date over paint exactly besides the fact i could say it's just old and well over a century old um i it is would be a convincing argument that a lot of that happened in that kind of um in the do curlions collection while i was in france uh in fact some of the false details i see in the engraving and in fact you know nowadays we are so careful with cleaning um removing varnish and over paint in a way that doesn't affect the original paint but often a lot of the damage is done in the early years of a painting's life especially when the oil paint is not full didn't have centuries to polymerize so um it it you know i would believe it if um damage in the costume especially with black paint happen very early on its life and kind of reworked while it was in that collection it's fascinating to think about um you know the changes that these objects go through over the course of their journey you know through the centuries and in different collections uh and that they're not static we have another question um in your opinion through the process of working so closely with rembrandt's work what makes rembrandt so special and his work so captivating um i would oh my gosh there are so many maybe that's actually a painting uh sorry that's actually a question that would be great for the next um speakers i think uh arthur wheelock and stephanie dickey and i remember um he's arthur recently wrote a like essay published on the line uh uh collection website which i think touches a lot on that and you know what he said and i kind of mentioned is that like in amsterdam like in his first years there like he was greatly admired for his subtle rendering of flesh tone control of life and dark and just the lifelike rendering you know of um the sitters um and that is something that i feel transcends time right like um people nowadays can look at a painting by rembrandt um look at the sitter and just feel the warmth of the sitter even though you know this is from like over like 400 years ago so um yeah it's just um something very captivating about the way he renders gazes um the lifelike nature that just really really transcends time yeah i completely agree and um arthur wheelock's recent article he speaks about rembrandt as a universal artist and you know it's a perfect word because um you know his work has this ability to have this freshness and this connection to people across the centuries and that's something really special so i think that's one of the reasons why he he continues to be a fascinating hater to look at yeah um and i see a question here about where it was before it was um at the early on so it had vern record puts it uh in that collection as early as 1727 it could have been before that but that's just the first date where we have apparently written record for that provenance and i don't think there's really any information about where it was before then um but with issues of provenance like 1727 it's it's pretty far back you know given a lot of the old master paintings like to be able to chase it back that far and it's not just even a random like merchant it is like a princely um royal collection um so it's actually a pretty big deal um you know it's this is also why this painting really deserves re-evaluation because um it's it just it didn't come out of nowhere it is had always had you know um yeah quite an important um place in many very important collections so yeah that's an important point um great well thank you so much sean and thank you everyone for joining us and i hope you'll have a chance to visit the museum to see the painting for yourself and for an in-depth look at its fascinating history in the exhibition rembrandt revealed which has been supported by the richard c von hesse foundation and will be on view through may 2nd and please do join us for a dynamic conversation regarding the attribution of rembrandt's paintings on february 18th thank you good night