Wadsworth’s new ‘Chasing Rembrandt’ exhibit highlights the museum’s quest for a real Rembrandt

The Wadsworth Atheneum thought they knew what it was like to have several Rembrandts in their permanent collection. Turns out they only know what it’s like to own a Samuel van Hoogstraten, a Govert Flinck, a Ferdinand Bol and a portrait of somebody who is definitely not Rembrandt’s son by someone who paints a whole lot like Rembrandt but is otherwise unknown.

The artworks are not forgeries, and it’s assumed that those involved in the deals all believed they were Rembrandts when they were sold or given to the Wadsworth. The works were simply misattributed.

The exhibit was created in partnership with TheaterWorks Hartford, which is currently staging Jessica Dickey’s play “The Rembrandt” through May 14. The play is about a museum guard who is fascinated with a Rembrandt painting, which leads to a history-spanning musing on the meaning of art and life.

Asked for her reaction to the Wadsworth exhibit, Dickey said, “What a fantastic idea, eh? I love going to museums, and obviously, I spent a lot of time in them as part of my research for this play. I interviewed museum guards at The Met in New York, The National Gallery in Washington D.C., The National Gallery in London, among others. That this production sparked a clasping of hands between these two institutions of the Hartford community really delights me. I hope it inspires other theaters and artistic institutions to do the same.”

Beyond its timely connection to the TheaterWorks show, “Chasing Rembrandt” is an extraordinary bit of self-effacing, self-examination for the Wadsworth, which augments the display of four former Rembrandts with a glass case of newspaper clippings and press releases from when some of the works were being celebrated as major new additions to the museum’s collection. Also in the glass case is a 1978 catalog of Dutch paintings in which, for the first time, all four of the once-supposed Rembrandts were listed under other names.

It is a small exhibit in a single room just off of the museum’s Morgan Great Hall, and the Wadsworth is probably glad it’s not larger. If visiting “Chasing Rembrandt” makes you want to see a real actual Rembrandt, the Wadsworth has one. “The Return of Tobias and the Angel” is on loan from a private collection and is hanging in the Early Baroque area on the second floor of the museum.

As interest in Rembrandt grew during the 20th century, so did the scholarship which helped determine which works he created entirely by himself, which ones he might have collaborated on with other artists, which were done by his students or followers and which might have been done by artists unconnected to Rembrandt yet deeply influenced by his style.

The largest and most immediately Rembrandt-seeming of the four works on display is an engrossing portrait of a well-dressed, curly-haired smiley young man. It has a range of colors and especially the contrast of lightness and darkness that are associated with a lot of Rembrandt portraits. It also depicts someone who vaguely resembles one of the painter’s favorite subjects.

When it entered the Wadsworth collection with much fanfare in 1954, it was known as “Portrait of Titus” and credited to Rembrandt, but now both the title and credit have changed. The subject was long thought to be the painter’s son Titus, but as the authenticity of the painting came under suspicion, the identity of the young man it depicts was questioned as well. The work is now called “Portrait of a Young Man” and attributed to an “Imitator of Rembrandt Van Rijn.”

Rembrandt was a popular and well-known painter in his own time, and his legend has only grown in the centuries since. When American art museums entered a phase in the early 20th century of bolstering their permanent collections with indisputable classic works, Rembrandt was on every major institution’s list.

“How can it be,” asked Oliver Tostmann, the Wadsworth’s curator of European art, “that we have four different paintings here all ascribed to the greatest artist of the 17th century?”

“In terms of execution, they vary vastly,” Tostmann said. Especially when seen together, it seems particularly obvious that “they have not been created by one hand.” He noted that Flinck was considered one of Rembrandt’s top students and became known as an important artist in his own right. His “Portrait of a Woman in Profile” is an excellent example of someone painting in the Rembrandt style.

“Pupils joined Rembrandt as teenagers. They stayed in his house. They lived and worked together. It was a close-knit community,” Tostmann said. “They might leave to start a career on their own but still might be best known for painting in the style of Rembrandt. So they might continue doing that until they could move on.”

The drawing in the exhibit by Bol, Tostmann pointed out, has a Rembrandt signature on it. “It was not unusual for collectors to draw that on themselves.”

It is easy in retrospect to find telling clues that the works in “Chasing Rembrandt” aren’t by Rembrandt. The unknown artist’s “Portrait of a Young Man” certainly “looks very Rembrandty,” pausing to state that “the correct term is ‘Rembrandtesque.’” Then he points to the young man’s hand, which is partly obscured by the cloak he’s wearing. “There’s a muddling of the colors in the hand,” the curator said. “The hand is hidden. The artist is not as keenly knowledgeable about anatomy as Rembrandt. If you look at real Rembrandt hands, they don’t have to hide.”

Tostmann also questioned the baubles on the chain around the young man’s neck, a style that was “very unusual in Dutch portraits of that time.”

In the 1950s, though, “a whole host of art experts” supported the idea not only that was a true Rembrandt,” Tostmann said, but that “it was one of the most important Rembrandt paintings coming to the United States.” Less than 15 years later, the authenticity was being questioned, and by the late 1960s, the painting no longer was hung in a prominent place in the museum. It was included in a Rembrandt exhibit in 2009-10 but as an example of a work in his style that Rembrandt did not paint.

“In the ‘50s and ‘60s, the Wadsworth tried to branch out,” Tostmann said. “They were looking for a broader representation of all art. Filling a gap with one of the greatest artists was totally understandable at that time. The curator at that time had bad luck with Rembrandt, but great luck with other artists whose work he brought to the Wadsworth.

“’Chasing Rembrandt,’” Tostmann added, “allows us to look back at this institution’s history in an objective manner. We can look at moments where we tried out best but things didn’t work out. This exhibit also invites you to look up close. These are new insights. The way we look at these paintings can change due to the changing scholarship.”

“Chasing Rembrandt: The Wadsworth’s Quest for a Rembrandt” is on exhibit through July 23 at the Wadsworth Atheneum, 600 Main St., Hartford. The museum is open Thursdays through Sundays from noon to 5 p.m. Admission is $15, $12 seniors, $5 students and free for Hartford residents and youth under 17. Admission is also free for all from 4 to 5 p.m. Thursday through Sunday. thewadsworth.org.