The Case of the Servant With the Fur Collar

 

By Carol Vogel

Published: September 22, 2005

Why was she wearing fur?

That was one of the first questions experts asked about a 17th-century portrait of a woman with the stolid face of a servant but a sumptuous fur collar. And why did the light on her face appear to be reflected off the dark surface of that collar when it should be absorbed by it?

Rembrandt House The restored "Portrait of an Elderly Woman in a White Bonnet" after a fur collar was removed

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Rembrandt House "Portrait of an Elderly Woman in a White Bonnet" with the fur collar

  

                               

These were puzzling questions, since the woman, whose head is covered in a plain white bonnet, certainly did not seem to belong to the class of 17th-century Dutch society that had its portraits painted. Some experts would have taken one look at the canvas and immediately dismissed it as the work of a minor artist.

But when Ernst van der Wetering, the head of the Rembrandt Research Project, saw the painting, he recognized something far more important than her dress.

For more than two years, the painting on wood panel has been undergoing slow but extensive restoration and study under the care of Mr. van der Wetering and Martin Bijl, a former head of conservation for the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. With scientists' help, they have concluded that the painting is a Rembrandt from about 1640 that someone tried, a century later, to transform into a formal portrait.

No other experts had seen the painting - until recently, when it went on view at the Rembrandt House in Amsterdam in anticipation of the 400th anniversary of the artist's birth in 2006. The painting is then headed for the auction block, at Sotheby's January sale of old master paintings in New York.

George Wachter, director of old master paintings for Sotheby's worldwide, has put an estimate of $3 million to $4 million on "Portrait of an Elderly Woman in a White Bonnet". The painting came to Sotheby's more than two years ago when Howard Walsh Jr., a collector from Texas, asked Mr. Wachter for his opinion of it. He had inherited it from his parents, Howard and Mary D. Fleming Walsh, who bought it from the Newhouse Gallery in Manhattan in 1971. At the time they were told it was a Rembrandt.

But scholars were not so sure. "We couldn't sell it as a Rembrandt until we knew more," Mr. Wachter said, adding “I could see there was a lot of quality to it."

He promptly sent a photograph of the painting to Mr. van der Wetering, who said he was interested in seeing it firsthand. So with Mr. Walsh's blessing Mr. Wachter sent the painting to Amsterdam.

As head of the Amsterdam-based group of experts who have the last word on whether a painting is by Rembrandt, Mr. van der Wetering has examined many questionable old masters.

"We get piles of photographs, but when I first looked at this painting, I couldn't help but get excited, which is rare," he said, standing in front of "Portrait of an Elderly Woman in a White Bonnet," which rested on an easel by the window of a conference room at Sotheby's in Amsterdam.

He pointed to some delicate wisps of hair spilling out of the bonnet and the intricate rendering of the bonnet, the woman's ear and her neck, which he said were unmistakably Rembrandt-like.

But, he added, the way the light reflected off the collar simply "didn't make sense." He was also intrigued by how the artist captured a sense of light falling obliquely from behind the sitter in a way that left her face largely in shadows.

He still could not confirm its authenticity until it had been restored. That's when Mr. Bijl, now an independent curator, was enlisted. He, too, saw the genius of Rembrandt in the painting.

Peter Klein, a wood biologist from Hamburg, Germany, was brought in to test the oak panel. He discovered that it had come from the same tree as Rembrandt's "Self-Portrait With a Hat" (1633), which is in the Louvre, as well as "Portrait of Willem Burggraaff," also for 1633, in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden, Germany, which has been attributed to the artist's workshop, and a landscape in the Wallace Collection in London that is thought to be from 1640 and was painted by a student of Rembrandt.

By examining the work carefully, Mr. van der Wetering said he and Mr. Bijl could see seams where wood panel had been added to the original painting. The dark background had been painted over so old and new would look as one.

X-rays and pigment tests confirmed their suspicions that in an attempt to make it more salable, someone had transformed the painting into a formal portrait, changing its shape from arched to rectangular and adding a fur collar to make the sitter look more like a lady.

X-rays showed many layers to the painting. Around the woman's neck was the fur collar, but under it there was a black layer of paint, and under that what Rembrandt had originally intended: a whitish collar. That explained the reflections, since light could well reflect off a white collar, but not off dark fur.

"Thinking is the longest part," Mr. Bijl said. "We had to be sure of each step we took." After two years of debate, he removed the fur, which revealed the yellowish-white collar. The collar, unlike the whiter bonnet, has a yellowish cast because, a textile expert confirmed, that "poorer people used a kind of starch for their collars that had a tendency to turn yellow, but they used a better type of starch for their caps," Mr. van der Wetering said. "And Rembrandt was very aware of the difference of these tones."

Only after the fur collar was removed, Mr. Bijl said, could he see the reflections of light on the jaw, the cheek and the chin.

Mr. van der Wetering concluded that the sitter was one of Rembrandt's household servants and that the painting is an oil study he did to experiment with the issue of light.

"Rembrandt was called the painter of light, and rightly so," Mr. van der Wetering said.

 

Vocabulary practice

Exercise 1

a) Choose adverbs which make strong word partnerships with the verbs absorb and reflect:

accurately              clearly        gradually               adequately             not necessarily       quickly                   easily          faithfully    readily        passively

reflect		absorb

 

b) Translate using absorb and reflect.

1. Вы уверены, что результаты стандартизированных тестов (standardized tests) адекватно отражают способности учащихся? 2. Эта ткань легко впитывает как воду, так и другие жидкости. 3. Отличная память позволяла ему быстро усваивать большие объемы информации. 4. Нам хотелось бы, чтобы перевод верно передавал не только содержание, но и стиль этого популярного романа. 5. Опасность телевидения состоит в том, что зрители пассивно воспринимают информацию, не заботясь о том, насколько она достоверна. 6. Этот способ полива позволяет влаге проникать глубоко в почву, где она немедленно поглощается корнями растения. 7. В жару не следует быстро выпивать большое количество жидкости, поскольку организму требуется время, чтобы постепенно впитывать воду. 8. Мнения, высказанные в газетных и журнальных статьях, не всегда отражают мнение редакции. 9. Хорошо написанное резюме должно четко соответствовать вашему опыту и квалификациям. 10. Можно ли сказать, что этот опрос точно отражает настроения в обществе?

 

Exercise 2

Answer the following questions

1. Many people found it outrageous that a G - 8 summit meeting in Japan where one of the main issues was hunger and the global food shortage was marked by a sumptuous 8-course meal. What do you think about it? 2. What is your idea of a sumptuous dinner?

Exercise 3

Note the difference between the verbs restore, renovate and redecorate.

to restore means to put (an old building, a piece of furniture or a work of art) into its original state.

to renovate means to put back into good condition by repairing, rebuilding, etc.

to redecorate means to put new paint, wallpaper etc on the inside of a building.

a) Answer the questions

1. Think of some examples of historic buildings being restored or renovated. Which of the two variants do you consider preferable? 2. When did you last have your flat / room redecorated? Did you enjoy the process? 3. Can you name any European countries where the restoration of the monarchy took place?

b) Translate using restore, restoration

1. Ожидается, что после 5 лет реставрации, музей наконец вновь откроется в конце августа этого года. 2. Эквадор и Колумбия договорились восстановить дипломатические отношения, прерванные из-за приграничного конфликта в марте этого года. 3. Международное сообщество сделает все возможное, чтобы помочь Китаю восстановить здания, пострадавшие во время недавнего землетрясения. 4. Наша фирма принимала участие в выполнении реставрационных работ в особняке 18 века в центре Москвы. 5. Инженеры работали всю ночь, чтобы восстановить подачу электроэнергии в дома южного Норфолка. 6. Ливанские власти заявили, что они готовы применить силу, чтобы разоружить боевиков и восстановить порядок в стране. 7. Эта программа поможет вам восстановить жесткий диск, в случае если он был поврежден вирусом.

Exercise 4

Answer the following questions.

1. At the end of the term students are usually full of anticipation for the holidays and they find difficulty in concentrating on studies. If you were a teacher, how would you encourage them to give more attention to work? 2. Do you think you are able to use intuition to anticipate the future? 3. How do you usually feel in anticipation of a big party you are going to give (a report you are to make)? 4. What should people do in anticipation of an interview for a job?

Exercise 5

Translate using inherit, heritage, inheritance, and heir.

1. Наследство было поделено поровну между всеми братьями. 2. Архитектурное наследие нашего города под угрозой уничтожения, и мы должны сделать все возможное, чтобы спасти его. 3. Так как король умер, не оставив сына, возникли споры о том, кто является законным наследником трона. 4. Если бы Джейн не поссорилась со своим дядей, она могла бы унаследовать все его состояние. 5. Правительство утверждает, что унаследовало все эти проблемы от предыдущей администрации. 6. Налог на наследство не изменялся уже более пятнадцати лет. 7. В 1996 году озеро Байкал было объявлено объектом всемирного наследия ЮНЕСКО.

Exercise 6 

1. Are you a good photographer? Is it easy or difficult to capture movement in a picture? 2. Can you name a writer who managed to capture the inner word of his characters? 3. What works of modern art manage to capture the spirit of today’s lifestyle?

Exercise 7

Answer the following questions using oblique  

a) What kind of muscles is the girl in the first picture working? 2. Can you find the right triangular in the second picture? What do you call a triangle which is not right? 3. What makes the map in the third picture unusual?

                               

                       

 

b) Translate using oblique.

1. Эмма не поверила своим глазам, увидев знакомый наклонный почерк на конверте. 2. Этот результат косвенным образом подтверждает нашу теорию. 3. Его слова можно расценить как завуалированную критику нашего метода. 4. Хотя улик недостаточно, мы можем провести косвенную параллель между этими двумя преступлениями. 5. Никто, казалось, не понимал его скрытых намеков.

Exercise 8

Answer the following questions

1. Why do you think advertisers and campaigners often try to enlist celebrities? 2. Serving in the army is not popular nowadays. What do you think could encourage young people to enlist? 3. Do you know any institutions or agencies that enlist volunteers? Are there any activities in which you would agree to enlist? 4. What do you think of schools enlisting pupils to clean the school building and the nearby territory of garbage?

Exercise 9

Translate using genius

1. Гениальный конструктор Сергей Королев стал известен миру только после своей смерти. 2. В 1992 году американские власти обвинили шахматного гения Бобби Фишера в нарушении международных санкций против Югославии, после того как он принял участие в шахматном турнире в Белграде. 3. Философы много спорят о том, что такое гениальность. 4. Как только я взглянул на картину, я понял, что это гениальное произведение.

Exercise 10

Answer the following questions

1. What do you think is the ideal shape for a room (square, rectangular, oblong, round)? Can you give some examples of rooms / buildings of an unusual shape? 2. What do you think of today’s music scene? Can you say music groups come in all shapes and sizes (i.e. are very different)? 3. How do you choose the right clothes for your body shape? Are there clothes that go right with every body shape? 4. Look at the two shapes. Which of these shapes is named Booba and which is named Kiki? (a psychological test by Wolfgang Kohler)

 

Exercise 11

Give the English equivalents of the following expressions

густой слой косметики

двойной защитный слой пластика

верхние слои атмосферы

озоновый слой

нанести слой лака/краски

высшие / средние / низшие слои общества

Exercise 12

Work in pairs.

1. Все рейсы были приостановлены в ожидании нелетной погоды.	1. All flights were suspended in anticipation of bad weather.
2. Три картины Густава Климта, среди которых великолепный портрет Адель Блох-Бауер, отнятые нацистами у еврейской семьи в 1938 году, были возвращены наследникам по решению одного из венских музеев.	2. Three Gustav Klimt’s paintings, a sumptuous portrait of Adel Bloch-Bauer among them, seized by the Nazis from a Jewish family in 1938 have been returned to the heirs by a Vienna museum.
3. Победы Александра Македонского и его полководцев доказывают (отражают) гениальность тех, кто их одержал.	3. The military achievements of Alexander the Great and his marshals reflect the genius of their authors.
4. Солнечный свет падает на Землю большей частью под наклоном. Свет проходит сквозь озоновый слой, часть ультрафиолета поглощается молекулами озона до того, как достигает поверхности Земли; таким образом, количество поступающей радиации сокращается.	4. Sunlight strikes most of the Earth at an oblique angle. The light travels through the ozone layer; UV-B is partly absorbed by molecules of ozone before reaching the Earth’s surface, thus the amount of incoming radiation is reduced.
5. Краски на холсте поблекли, поэтому эту картину решено реставрировать.	5. The colours on the canvas are fading, so it has been decided to restore the painting.
6. Хорошему портретисту удается передать не только сходство, но и характер модели.	6. A good portrait artist manages to capture not just likeness, but also the sitter’s character.
7. Мы хотели бы привлечь всех желающих помочь сохранить природное и культурное наследие страны.	7. We would like to enlist volunteers to help us preserve the country’s natural and cultural heritage.

 

Exercise 13

Translate into Russian.

1. The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape...(Pablo Picasso). 2. I readily absorb ideas from every source, frequently starting where the last person left off (Thomas Alva Edison). 3. I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best. (Frida Kahlo) 4. Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can. (Danny Kaye) 5. Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. (Oscar Wilde). 6. Talent, lying in the understanding, is often inherited; genius, being the action of reason or imagination, rarely or never. (Samuel Taylor Coleridge). 7. Sometimes, indeed, there is such a discrepancy between the genius and his human qualities that one has to ask oneself whether a little less talent might not have been better. (Carl Jung). 8. How you treat others is a direct reflection of how you feel about yourself. (Amber Deckers). 9. There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. (Edith Wharton)

Reading Comprehension

I. Make sure you know the answers to the following.

1. Who was the owner of the canvas and why did he want an expert’s opinion of it? 2. What seemed strange about the painting? What could have made some experts dismiss it as the work of a minor artist? 3. Who was Mr. Van der Wetering and why was he interested in seeing the picture firsthand? 4. What features seemed unmistakably Rembrandt-like to the expert? 5. What did the test of the oak panel and the X-rays show? Who had altered the original work and why had it been done?

II. Find the English equivalents of the following.

Флегматичное (бесстрастное) лицо; приводящий в замешательство вопрос; простой белый капор; заказать свой портрет; не придать значения портрету, посчитав его работой второстепенного художника; подвергнуться медленной всесторонней реставрации; выставляться (о картине); в преддверии юбилея; картине предстоит продажа с аукциона; приблизительно оценить картину в (какую-либо сумму); взглянуть на что-либо лично; последнее слово остается за экспертами; картины, чья подлинность сомнительна; тонкие пряди волос, выбивающиеся из-под головного убора; искусное исполнение; передавать ощущение света, падающего наискосок из-за спины натурщицы; подтвердить подлинность; дубовая доска; приписываться мастерской художника; рентген и анализ красок; желтоватый оттенок; сорт крахмала для воротников; замечать разницу в оттенках; экспериментировать с понятием света.

III. Discuss the following.

1. Why do you think it took two years of debate to remove the fur from the collar? What makes the job of a restorer so responsible? 

2. Why is so much importance attached to Old Masters? Can we compare the impact of modern art to that of classical art?

 

Listening Comprehension

Text 1

  

the Lady with an Ermine – Дама с горностаем (картина Леонардо да Винчи) a whim – прихоть, каприз, причуда. a drawer – ящик письменного стола parchment - пергамент

 

• How much did the collector pay for the drawing and what is its potential value?
• Why did he buy the drawing and where did he keep it?
• Who was the first to spot Leonardo’s hand in this work?
• What materials did the artist use and who did he portray?

Have your say

What do you think of art as a means of investment?

How do art and business go together?

 

Text 2. We need art to tell us who we are.

fiscal binds – финансовые затруднения sissy (разг.) – неженка, «маменькин сынок» a commodity – товар, предмет торговли well-heeled (разг.) – богатый scrap (over smth) – драться из-за чего-либо grace (with smth) – украшать

 

• How does the author account for the fact that art programs at schools are vulnerable to the ax when there are fiscal binds?
• What attitude to art does American society have? Does the author encourage this attitude?

Have your say

What is the purpose of fine arts according to the author? Do you agree with him on the point?

How would you define the difference between fine art and design? Which of the two is given more attention nowadays?

Project

What do you know about the problem of graffiti? Is it an art form or merely vandalism? How should authorities respond to graffiti? What purposes can graffiti serve? How can street art help young people of disadvantaged social backgrounds? Study the experience of an American community that enlisted troubled youth in an art project.