Exciting times for amateurs of old masters – after the discovery of a new Brueghel at the end of September, by Manfred Sellink (the director of the Bruges Museums and a contributor to our publications), a new Rembrandt has turned up now. 

The painting, Tobias and his wife, was not made by a pupil but by Rembrandt van Rijn himself, according to the newest standard work on the artist. Tobias and his wife belongs to the Willem van der Vorm Foundation’s collection and is on long-term loan to the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam.

The museum was having the work restored for an exhibition in Japan. Now the restoration has been postponed for a while and the work will be on display to the public for a month.

No doubt

Rembrandt painted this portrait of a man and woman by an open hearth over an older still life painted by a different artist. In many places the paint has become so thin that traces of the still life are visible.

In the recently published A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings V  the art historian and Rembrandt specialist, Prof. Dr. Ernst van de Wetering, says that there is no doubt that Tobias and his wife is by Rembrandt. There are various similarities with the etching Saint Peter and Saint John Healing the Cripple at the Gate of the Temple, from 1659.

The specific feeling for detail in general that can be found in Rembrandt’s work from the 1640s, the rendition of the figures and the surroundings they are in, as well as the manner in which perspective is used in the work and the positioning of the step in the floor, right in the foreground, are clear indications that Tobias and his Wife is a genuine Rembrandt, according to the art historian.