Rembrandt Melee

Dr. Van Dyke Flouts the Unanimous Opinion of the World The reputation of Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn (1606-1669), long ranked as the greatest painter of the Dutch school and among the half-dozen greatest of the world, received a severe jolt when, in a large, expensive book, Rembrandt and His School.* Dr. John Charles Van Dyke, Professor of the History of Art at Rutgers College, attacked the alleged Rembrandt myth, assiduously fostered by critics, collectors and the public, which has ascribed over 800 paintings of varying merit to the master. He finished by conceding authenticity to a scant 35. The rest of the works commonly attributed to Rembrandt, he claims, are by Eeckhout, Bol, Kolnick, Horst, Fabritius, Backer, de Gelder and other pupils, copyists, or imitators of Rembrandt, and since the great Hollander's vogue became so high in the last century, they have been assigned to him through motives of cupidity, pride, national interest or pure habit.

Among Professor Van Dyke's "35 genuine Rembrandts " is included not a single one in any American gallery. He rejects the 18 in the Metropolitan (Manhattan), the Portrait of a Girl in the Chicago Art Institute, two in the Widener collection, which he thinks are Vermeers, and those in the Byers collection (Pittsburgh), the Evans and Gardiner collections (Boston), the Walters collection (Baltimore). The chief Metropolitan Rembrandts are the group of 13 bequeathed by Benjamin Altman in 1913, including the Old Woman Cutting Her Nails, Pilate Washing His Hands, Toilet of Bathsheba, one of the many self-portraits of the artist, and portraits of Hendrickje Stoffels, Rembrandt's housekeeper, mistress and second wife, and of Titus, his son by his first wife, Saskia van Uylenburg. There are also the Man with a Beard and the Portrait of a Man, of the Marquand collection, the Oriental, given by Mr. Vanderbilt, and two portraits lent by J. P. Morgan. Practically all of these are signed " Rembrandt f." (abbreviation for fecit--made), with the dates, ranging from 1633 to 1665. Most of them were listed by Dr. Wilhelm Bode, famed Berlin critic and director of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, in his exhaustive catalogue of Rembrandt's works.

European galleries fare little better at Prof. Van Dyke's hands. Of the 23 Rembrandts in the Louvre, only four are genuine, he says; four out of 21 in the National Gallery, London; two out of 43 in the Hermitage, Petrograd; and three out of 26 in the Berlin gallery. Professor Van Dyke does not quarrel with the quality of many of the pictures he rejects. They are beautiful and representative works of arts, but not by Rembrandt. The Old Woman Cutting Her Nails, for instance, is an " early and violent example " of Nicholas Maes, who is esteemed for many genre works of humble people in similar vein, and using the same model.

Dr. Van Dyke's book has naturally provoked a chorus of opposition on the part of critics and museum directors. His views are flatly opposed not only to those of Bode, but of Valentiner, Muther, Bredius, De Groot, McColl and others who have made a life-long study of Rembrandt. The Metropolitan authorities, represented by Bryson Burroughs, curator of paintings, frankly deride his opinions, and believe their Rembrandts genuine. G. Frank Muller, E. M. Sperling, Raymond Henniker-Heaton, and other American experts are equally skeptical, though Joseph Pennell, the etcher, inclines to Van Dyke's side of the controversy. It is readily admitted that numerous pictures attributed to Rembrandt are " school " pieces, and many are ; catalogued as such. But the sweep: in condemnation is denied. Rembrandt, like many other painters, underwent an artistic evolution and painted in several styles at various times. He was an impractical man, a philosopher of paint, not popular in his own time, and his constant financial and personal tangles culminated in his bankruptcy in 1656, when an inventory ; listing more than 200 of his paintings was made a part of the court record. Van Dyke says he has over; looked none of these facts, but has ! based his argument on the internal testimony of the pictures themselves. ' He expected this opposition, and would have published his book long ago had he not felt it presumptuous to flout the almost unanimous opinion of the art world. It is not the first time, however, that the authenticity of many Rembrandts has been questioned, notably by Dr. Alfred "yon Wurzbach, of Vienna. '.'.".

Dr. Van Dyke is 67 years old, has been on the Rutgers faculty since

1889, is no relation to Dr. Henry Van Dyke of Princeton. He is widely known for his lucid historical and critical writings on art, which include a first-class text on the History of Painting (1894), Art for Art's Sake, The Meaning of Pictures, What Is Art? and monographs on various schools. He is now working on a similar study of Rubens, of whom it is well known that many paintings signed by him were executed by his pupils from sketches by the master.

* REMBRANDT AND HIS SCHOOL -- John Charles Van Dyke--Scribner ($12.00)--Limited edition, 1,200 copies, 187 illustrations.