Sunday Lunch & Lecture

NORTH CAROLINA MUSEUM OF ART

Rembrandt after 400 Years: Old Masters Still Relevant?

Dennis Weller managed to make an otherwise looked-to event into a “why did I?” The curator of Northern European Art for the North Carolina Museum of Art, Weller's scholarly lectures focus on Dutch and Flemish art of the 16-17th centuries and he conducts an annual all-day seminar on Dutch Masters (February 16). But Sunday's lecture was the rescheduling of the cancelled January 20 date, a Sunday when it would have been prelude to the February seminar. Since I attended the seminar last month (Dutch & Flemish Paintings in America, a look at industrial baron’s collections), the lecture today seemed mostly redundant.

Questioning the attribution of some Rembrandts, looking at those once believed to be and now seriously questioned and some in the reverse process, gives rise to a few audience laughs if no conclusive information. Comparing the international “Rembrandt Project” to the Supreme Court by its offerings of majority and minority opinions; by this date the Project curators have been replaced and several opinions reversed. The result being that your 30 million dollar Rembrandt may be worth only 3 million, or maybe not.

So where does that leave Rembrandt?
Seeing the auction prices of old masters hit the double-digit-millions in recent years the NCMA has all the Rembrandt’s they are likely to get. For that reason as much an any, Weller is currently cultivating connections to borrow all the Rembrandts he can coax out of other U.S. collections to mount a major Rembrandt show at North Carolina’s Museum of Art, at other U.S. venues and ultimately at the Rembrandt House in Amsterdam. The proposed date of 2010 is more likely to be 2011, or even 2012. But when exhibiting the best works of one of the greatest painters in history, what’s a year or two?

Questions from the audience included the inevitable “are the paintings signed?” The answer is yes, they have been signed by Rembrandt and by several other artists. The difficulty here is that Rembrandt signed his own name differently at various times in his life; he also signed paintings begun by students in his ‘workshop,’ not unusual at the time; and certainly forgers have signed his name. The authoriative answer is to know which of the signatures are valid and which are not. Determining correct attribution is something I happily to leave to Weller.

The best part of today’s Lunch & Lecture?
The strawberry shortcake; somebody’s elegant creation of a sweet, crusty biscuit, halved and spread with lemon curd. Then offered with strawberries and a whipped cream with lime flavoring. The dessert was better than the buffet lunch and far better than the lecture.
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