Hidden painting found under Rembrandt portrait in Los Angles

Source: NL Times

by Janene Van Jaarsveldt

Using two complementary imaging techniques and new mobile scanners, researchers from Los Angeles, Antwerp and Delft has been able to reveal a painting hidden underneath Rembrandt’s famous painting An Old Man in Military Costume, which is currently in The Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The hidden underlying painting shows a young man wrapped in a cloak.

The results of this collaboration was published in the Applied Physics journal on Tuesday.

Rembrandt was known to re-use supports, such as wood panels, canvases and copper plates, particularly during the early years of his career. Since the 1960’s historians have known that there is another painting under the Old Man in Military Costume painting, but up until now a clear image of what it may be could not be achieved.

“Our ability to image the underlying painting has greatly benefited from recent technological advances”, Karen Trentelman, senior scientist with the Getty Conservation Institute, says on TU Delft’s website. “Researchers are always limited by the tools available to them, and over the years the study of this painting – and the underlying image – has progressively advanced with the introduction of each new tool. With this latest study, our scans reveal the distribution of specific chemical elements, from which we can infer the pigments used in the first composition, providing us with the most detailed image of the underlying painting to date.”

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Painting hidden under Rembrandt's An Old Man in Military Costume (Picture: TU Delft)


Painting hidden under Rembrandt’s An Old Man in Military Costume (Picture: TU Delft)

Read more: http://www.nltimes.nl/2015/09/01/hidden-painting-found-under-rembrandt-portrait-in-los-angeles/