OMAHA WORLD-HERALD REMBRANDT REBORN SUNDAY, MAY 4, 2014 • 3Y

Once a crown jewel of the Joslyn’s collection, this portrait languished in storage for years, its origins in doubt. Only one man could restore it to the spotlight.

OUT OF THE SHADOWS RYAN SODERLIN/THE WORLD-HERALD RYAN

By Casey Logan • World-Herald Staff Writer Newly restored ries one of the most prized attributions and re-attributed in the art world. People respond to it. ERHAPS THE GREATEST DEFEAT of Harold Parsons’ life came to Rembrandt van For museums, a Rembrandt can serve Rijn, “Portrait of as a magnet that draws visitors, who 20 years after his death. • In 1987, following a century of debate Dirck van Os” will hopefully then go exploring. return to public “When a museum has a late Rem- among the world’s foremost experts on Dutch master Rembrandt van view in the Joslyn brandt, it has something very, very, Art Museum’s P very special,” said the world’s leading Rijn, the Joslyn Art Museum made a startling decision. It announced that a Hitchcock Foundation Rembrandt scholar. portrait in the museum’s collection since 1942 and attributed to Rembrandt Gallery on Which is maybe the biggest change was not a Rembrandt at all. • More likely, it was made by one of his many Monday. The of all. painting had been The painting is different because that students. It wasn’t fake exactly, but it also wasn’t real — at least not as it had placed in storage scholar, a 76-year-old Dutch professor 15 years ago. named Ernst van de Wetering, says so. been presented to the public for the previous 45 years. For years it was believed simply to be a work Expert opinion prompted the Joslyn to time to declare the acquisition “the finest from the “School It would be easy to say “Portrait of re-attribute the painting to the “School Rembrandt in America.” of Rembrandt,” Dirck van Os” has come full circle, but of Rembrandt,” a considerable fall in Parsons was a self-confident class of not by the Dutch that is the wrong geometric metaphor. prestige that reached bottom 12 years art historian. In 1941, the Joslyn intro- master himself. The painting has ridden a wave — up later when the museum removed it from duced the New York-based art dealer as and down, and now up again. display and placed it in storage. its new adviser. Parsons assured those It came to the United States in 1898, The Joslyn’s decision to downgrade assembled he’d have the museum on when a Rembrandt craze shook hands the painting drew little attention outside pace with the country’s finest institutions with the Gilded Age, flooding the art Nebraska, mostly because it wasn’t much by decade’s end. market with new players. news. Throughout the world, paintings He backed his bluster, helping acquire “All of a sudden, we have American credited to Rembrandt were being de-at- some of the Joslyn’s most prized works, millionaires who are trying to fit into tributed to the great 17th century artist. including its holdings by Titian, El Greco the conventional notions of what it Two years earlier in Berlin, a Rem- and Jackson Pollock. means to be a successful member of brandt masterpiece, “The Man With the The Rembrandt acquisition alone made society,” said Catherine Scallen, an art Golden Helmet,” fell under the same re- good on his reputation. The man the Jos- visionist knife. Not a Rembrandt. In New lyn hired to stock its galleries was more historian at Case Western Reserve Uni- York, suspicions arose about “The Polish than an art dealer, greater than an art his- versity. “And that included owning art.” Rider” at the Frick Collection. The fate torian, better than an art adviser. Parsons “Portrait of Dirck van Os” left a pri- of the Joslyn painting, “Portrait of Dirck fashioned himself a connoisseur. vate collection in St. Petersburg, Russia, van Os,” was a blip on a trend. and landed for the next few decades in Had he still been alive, Harold Wood- the collection of Boston businessman bury Parsons would have seen it differ- Frederick Sears. Sears had little reason to doubt its au- ently. For him, it was personal. Parsons This week, “Portrait of Dirck van Os” served as the adviser who steered the returns to display a very different paint- thenticity. Each of the leading Rembrandt museum to purchase “Portrait of Dirck ing. Extensive restoration means it will connoisseurs of the early 20th century van Os” with funds left by its founder, actually look different. — Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, Wilhelm Sarah Joslyn, after her death in 1940. It It is also different for reasons that Bode, Wilhelm Valentiner and Abraham was his invaluable eye and opinion that have nothing to do with aesthetics. The Bredius — gave it a passing grade. led the Joslyn’s board president at the portrait is a “Rembrandt” again. It car- See Rembrandt: Page 6

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