Correspondent in Berlin
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It is the dream of any museum: to find an unexpected Rembrandt in the funds of the institution. For more than 30 years, painting ‘landscape with arched bridge‘ had been considered the work of the student of Rembrandt, Govert Flinck. However, according to the latest research, it belongs to the master himself and, with immediate effect, completes the world-renowned Rembrandt holdings of the Gamäldegalerie in Berlin. Starting April 8, the painting will be exhibited in the special exhibition ‘David Hockney – Landscapes in Dialogue’, along with other landscape masterpieces among which you will find an added sense of temporal and stylistic perspective.
When ‘Landscape with an Arched Bridge’ (cat. no. 1932) entered the collection of the Berlin Pinacoteca in 1924, it was still considered a work by Rembrandt.
For Wilhelm von Bode, then Director General of the Royal Museums and an internationally renowned Rembrandt specialist, a wish he had cherished for several decades came true. With the landscape that had been missing up to that point, he was able to close what he considered to be an important gap in the Berlin collection and complete the catalogue. The painting came from the collection of the Grand Duke Frederick Augustus of Oldenburg (1852-1931), whose collection of paintings was destroyed in 1918, after he was forced to abdicate. Presumably, in September 1919, the former Grand Duke had around 115 of his best works transported to the Netherlands, largely unnoticed in a cloak-and-dagger operation, where they ended up at the Amsterdam auction house Frederik Muller. & Cie. From there, the painting was sent to the United States, along with a selection of 40 of the best works for sale. However, as Bode recorded, the work did not sell due to the expected high price and also because of the small format of the image of 28.5 x 39.5 cm. In 1923 it became the property of art dealers Paul Cassirer and Julius Boehler. A year later, the landscape was finally acquired by the Museum Emperor Frederick in exchange for three works from the collection, an extremely fortunate transaction for the art gallery, as they did not have sufficient funds to make such a high-quality purchase.
Until the 1980s, ‘Landscape with an Arched Bridge’ continued to be considered an authentic Rembrandt work. However, in 1989, following investigation by the Rembrandt Research Project, that attribution was canceled and it was attributed to one of his students, Govert Flinck. The comparison with the painting ‘Landscape with a stone bridge’ in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam was decisive in determining this depreciation. The Rembrandt Research Project addressed the striking similarities in painting technique and subject matter between the Berlin image, compared to Rembrandt’s other landscape depictions, especially the Amsterdam work. However, it was precisely this observation that later served as the decisive argument for attributing the Berlin painting to a successor or imitator of the master.
Recent research has re-evaluated its technical characteristics, based on newer technologies not available in 1989, which have now confirmed the autograph of the work. In this way, it has been possible to determine changes and corrections in the painting that were made during the painting process and that make the development of the composition more understandable with its masterful use of light and atmospheric contrasts of chiaroscuro. In contrast, the Amsterdam painting is hardly distinguished by the artist’s alteration interventions. Consequently, the painting held by the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin should not be considered as the work of a successor, but rather as a precursor to the Amsterdam landscape. This conclusion is also supported by the dendrochronological findings, which point to a later date of origin of the Amsterdam image. The strong revisions that Rembrandt undertook in the Berlin work also explain the notable differences in the pictorial style of the two pictures. In the Berlin version it is comparatively dense and compact, while in the following Amsterdam version it is transparent and at the same time precise.
Although Rembrandt painted only a few landscapes, they were innovative in style and composition, while also inspiring subsequent generations of artists. Above all through his masterfully staged and dramatically accentuated use of light, he created atmospheric moods unusual for 17th-century landscape painting. Currently, only seven landscape paintings from Rembrandt’s pictorial oeuvre are known. With the new attribution of the Berlin painting, this number has now increased to eight works.
The Gemäldegalerie in Berlin has one of the most important and extensive collections of Rembrandt’s works in the world. With the ‘Landscape with Arched Bridge’, this important set amounts to 20 works. As with the acquisition of the painting, around 100 years ago, the latest find serves to round out the collection and reaffirm it as a must-have in the artist’s studio.
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