A lost Rembrandt found after centuries in Rome

An exceptional discovery, which took place in Italy, of a painting attributed to Rembrandt, considered lost and never shown until now. The announcement was made today during the symposium “Rembrandt: identifying the prototype, seeing the invisible” at the French Academy of Villa Medici, in Rome, in the presence of international scholars and experts and promoted by the Italian Heritage Foundation ( Fpi), a non-profit body chaired by Guido Talarico aimed at the enhancement of the Italian cultural heritage. The work at the center of the symposium is an oil painting on paper applied to canvas, executed in 1632-1633, which shows the subject “The Adoration of the Magi” whose prototype, until today, had been considered lost by scholars of Rembrandt has survived only through copies, the best known of which are kept in St. Petersburg and Gothenburg. The chance rediscovery, which took place in Rome, tells a compelling and fascinating story. An accidental trauma to which the painting was the subject in 2016 made it necessary to rewind it; only then, thanks to the experience and sensitivity of the restorer Antonella Di Francesco, intent on recovering and cleaning the work blackened by the ancient paint, the masterpiece came to light, giving way to studies. “In the course of my work – says the restorer Antonella di Francesco – one of the most beautiful things in life can happen: the sudden awareness of being in front of a work by a very great author who reveals himself to you, who comes out of his opaque zone and chooses you to be redeemed by “darkness. This is the moment in which we must overcome the vertigo capable of making us sink into that wonderful sense of belonging to history. It is a thrill that has no equal, that vibrates until it drags you into an unstoppable impulse of morbid curiosity. I do not fight it.” and I let myself be carried inside the spell “. The very rare technique, but typical of the Dutch master in the 1930s, with which the work was created, its dimensions (54×44.5 cm), the same and a series of Rembrandt etchings relating to the “Life and Passion of Christ”, are some of the elements that strongly support the attribution. The sketches, almost invisible in the painting to the naked eye but brought to light by IR technologies, allow you to participate in the creative moment of the work in the moment in which it took shape in the hands of the author, showing its strength, technique and creative genius. in line with Rembrandt’s standards as well as an “Adoration of the Magi”, subject in general to the apex of the expressive potential of most artists. The conference in which the announcement of the discovery was made represents the first appointment of the project ” Discovering Masterpiece “, an initiative of the Italian Heritage Foundation which aims to promote cultural and scientific meetings, in Italy and abroad, for the study and dissemination of Italian and international art masterpieces belonging to collections Italians. “Kick off the ‘Discovering Masterpiece’ project with the discovery of an absolute masterpiece by one of the most loved artists of all time – declared President Guido Talarico – is a source of great pride for our Foundation, born with the aim of enhancing Italian private collections by proposing a new approach to collecting. The intent is to share sometimes unpublished works with the general public, as in this case, leaving them in Italy with the aim of raising awareness in our country of the immense potential of one of its flagship assets, such as its artistic heritage. cultural, as a driving force for economic growth “. The symposium, opened with greetings from Sam Stourdzéir, director of the French Academy in Rome, and Guido Talarico, president of the Italian Heritage Foundation, saw Marco Mascolo, art historian , author of “Rembrandt an Artist in Seventeenth Century Europe”, Peter Matthaes, director of the Museum of Art and Science in Milan, Francesca Bottacin, art historian and professor of Flemish and Dutch Art History at the University of Urbino “Carlo Bo”, Stefano Ridolfi, physicist for cultural heritage and lecturer at La Sapienza University of Rome, and Alessandro Caucci Molara, president of the Abraham Teerlink Foundation, Rome and president of the Advisory boar d of the Italian Heritage Foundation.