Rembrandt is the most famous of the seventeenth century Dutch painters However there are doubts whether some paintings attributed to Rembrandt were actually painted by him One such painting is known as attributed to Rembrandt because of its style and

The reading and the lecture are both about Rembrant’s painting. The author of the reading doubts whether some paintings attributed to Rembrandt were actually painted by him. The lecturer contradicts the claims made by the author. He feels that all paintings are authentic.

To begin with, the author argues that there is something inconsistent about the way the woman in the portrait is dressed. She is wearing a white linen cap of a kind that only servants would wear-yet the coat she is wearing has a luxurious fur collar that no servant could afford. This specific argument is challenged by the lecturer. He says that the fur collar was not originally part of the painting and was added many years later.

Secondly, the writer mentions that Rembrandt was a master of painting light and shadow, but in this painting these elements do not fit together. The face appears to be illuminated by light reflected onto it from below. But below the face is the dark fur collar, which would absorb light rather than reflect it. The lecturer, however, rebuts this by saying that once the fur collar has been erased, the original painting was revealed and all the light and shadow elements were accurate, as it should be.

Finally, the author posits that the examination of the back of the painting reveals that it was painted on a panel made of several pieces of wood glued together. Although Rembrandt often painted on wood panels, no painting known to be by Rembrandt uses a panel glued together in this way from several pieces of wood. In contrast, the lecturer informs us that when the collar was added, wood panels were added as well to make the painting more grand. He also adds that the original wood panel was from the same tree as the rest of Rembrant’s paintings.