For more than a century, a portrait hanging in a Cambridge entrepreneur’s home was dismissed as a mere workshop imitation—a decent copy of a Rembrandt, but not the original. Today, one of the world’s foremost Rembrandt scholars asserts that experts were mistaken, identifying it as an authentic work by the Dutch master.
The painting, titled “Old Man with a Gold Chain,” depicts an elderly man wearing a feathered hat and, as its name suggests, a gleaming gold chain. Dating from the early 1630s, it bears a striking resemblance to an undisputed Rembrandt held by the Art Institute of Chicago. For the first time in nearly four centuries, the two works were exhibited side-by-side in Chicago, reigniting a long-standing debate.
Scholar Gary Schwartz argues that both paintings are from the hand of Rembrandt himself. His reasoning: Dutch painters of that era often created their own replicas. Why entrust the work to a student whose errors would need correction, when one could simply repaint a recently finished composition, with the steps still fresh in hand and mind? The so-called ‘copy’ exhibits none of the corrections typically expected from an apprentice learning on the job.
Technical analysis further adds to the intrigue. The canvas and pigments of the British version match those used by Rembrandt’s studio, and its preparatory layers align perfectly with eight confirmed Rembrandt works dating from 1632-33. This significant discovery has been widely reported by media outlets.