Hague museum discovers painting acquired a century ago is a Rembrandt

The Museum Bredius in The Hauge discovered that an oil sketch titled Raising the Cross that it has had in its collection for years is a Rembrandt. This became clear after the museum restored the painting and researched it in collaboration with the Rijksmuseum, NOS report.

Museum director Abraham Bredius bought the oil sketch a century ago, assuming it to be by Rembrandt van Rijn. But in 1969, it was concluded that the 17th-century Dutch master did not paint it. Since then, the work has been described as a copy, painted by an imitator, of a similar Rembrandt painting that hangs in Munich.

Jerome Giltaij, former chief curator of ancient art at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, came across the painting while working on a book about works once considered Rembrandts, and he quickly became convinced that Raising the Cross was the real deal.

Museum Bredius then had the painting cleaned and examined in the Rijmsuseum using advanced equipment. “We quickly agreed,” said Giltaij. “It could only be a Rembrandt, albeit a loosely painted sketch, of oil on wood. But a real work by the 17th-century master.”

Dendrological research, which dates wood, supports that conclusion. It showed that Raising the Cross was painted between 1642 and 1645, about ten years after a similar painting in Munich.

Today, Museum Bredius opens an exhibition around the oil sketch. The exhibition is titled “A Rembrand discovered in Museum Bredius.”