The Mauritshuis is presenting a unique exhibition in which the scientific research behind the restoration of the painting Saul and David is central. In the hall, scientists are in the spotlight next to Rembrandt. The museum takes the visitor on a journey of discovery of many years by restorers, art historians and materials experts. And there is also a happy ending.
According to the Mauritshuis, Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) painted the impressive painting Saul and David. in the 1650s. The biblical king Saul then listens with agitation to the harp playing of the young David. Saul is so touched that he wipes his tears with a curtain. This painting has been in the Mauritshuis since 1898, but it has a controversial history. For example, the canvas cannot be found in sources from the 17 e century, large parts were painted over later and it was even cut into pieces.
The unsigned canvas was written off as a real Rembrandt in 1969, but remained a public favourite. When it was high time for restoration in 2007, Chief Curator Petria Noble began an extensive investigation into the painting's condition, original size, meaning and maker.
Back to basics
But how do you start such an extensive investigation? Noble:“Research starts with asking questions. It is important to know what you are doing before you can make decisions about the restoration of a work of art. I therefore wondered what the original composition could have been. What was the painter's intention? What exactly do we see? I read the existing art historical literature, delved into the archives and looked at the X-rays from the 1970s.”
For the first time, all existing facts were listed. Who owned the painting? What happened to it? And what has been written about it, for example after previous research? Noble took the time to wonder what all the information meant.
It was remarkable that the dimensions of the painting in a Paris auction catalog from 1830 did not match the current dimensions:it was a lot wider. Wider?
Noble:“Because of another mention in an auction catalog from 1869, we already knew that the canvas had been cut into pieces after 1830, perhaps because of damage or by an art dealer who thought he could get more money for two separate Rembrandt figures. Then Saul and David were reunited and the missing pieces (including a strip between the figures and the top right corner) were completed with an old painting and painted over in the same colors as the rest.”
“The question now was how much of the original canvas was missing and where it had been taken. When I placed the X-rays on the light box, I could clearly see that the original tensioning edge on the right side was still there. These photos had also been studied years ago but apparently misunderstood. Tension edges had not been looked at before, while that says a lot about the original size of the canvas. The X-rays just don't show any information about the paint because X-rays don't absorb certain pigments:bone black, smalt, red lacquer and various types of earth pigments. This made it difficult for me to determine what the original composition was.”
Cloth turns out puzzle
That composition was another mystery to Noble and her team. A curtain used to dry eyes did not fit well with the iconography of the 17 e century. This image of Saul made them doubt. Would the curtain have been painted later, when the two separate pieces were sewn back together? Perhaps part of the painting was missing between the two figures? A drawing, attributed to Rembrandt's pupil Willem Drost, shows a female figure between Saul and David.
To find out exactly how much of the original canvas had been lost, Noble brought in other experts for her research, such as materials scientist Rob Erdmann (UvA). Using new visualization techniques, he looked at the structure of the canvas in very high resolution, so that each thread was clearly visible.
Erdmann showed that the current painting is quite a puzzle:it consists of 15 different pieces of canvas. It also became clear that more than ten centimeters of the painting had been lost at the bottom and left edge. Moreover, after removing the overpaint and varnish, it turned out that only a few centimeters are missing between the figures of Saul and David.
Secret of the curtain
So no third figure between Saul and David. But was the curtain original or not? To find out, scientists from TU Delft and the University of Antwerp released a new technique on the painting in 2011:the macro XRF scanner (X-ray Fluorescence ). With this scanner, the researchers were able to map the underlying metals in the pigments, so that different (paint) layers in the painting can be distinguished.
Noble:“I was flabbergasted ! For the first time, the pleats of the curtain were visible. The tear-blowing curtain was not a 19 e fiction at all century, but already created by Rembrandt himself. He was very original with that.” The researchers knew this because the curtain's paint contained smalt, a cobalt-containing pigment that was used in the 17 e . century was incorporated into many of Rembrandt's paintings. The disadvantage of smalt is that it degrades over time with the blue slowly turning into brown.
Due to aging of the paint and the varnish layer, the painting had become darker over the years, so that the details were no longer clearly visible. The curtain was therefore originally brighter and much clearer to see. Is that coming back now?
Noble:“As a restorer, you want to get as close to the original state as possible, but aging a painting is now part of it:we don't do blue paint again.” After removing the varnish layer and the later additions, the restorers filled the empty spaces with water-based paint. Their adjustments can easily be reversed later, if necessary.
Old painting comes to the surface
Meanwhile, technology did not stand still. The updated MA_XRF scanner scanned faster and in higher resolution. Due to the previously astonishing results, the Mauritshuis decided to have the painting scanned again in 2013 and recently. The researchers now examined the entire painting and were able to distinguish more materials.
The result was a striking discovery. The X-ray showed which old painting had been used to fill in the gaps, despite the original paint being there in the 19 e century of wax deleted:it turned out to be a copy of the portrait of Archduchess Isabella from the 17 e century, after Anthony van Dyck.
Crime Scene Investigation:case closed
The restoration process of the Saul and David, including the scientific research, took eight years. Noble:“We had no idea beforehand what we would find under the paint. However, the investigation has provided so much information that we now know with 100 percent certainty what is original about the painting and what is not, that the curtain was part of the original composition and that Rembrandt is the painter.”
As for the attribution, the researchers believe that the painting was painted in two phases:around 1650 and the mid-1650s. The second phase in particular seems coarser and atypical for Rembrandt, which is why there were earlier doubts about it. However, the paint structure corresponds to Rembrandt's working method and the Mauritshuis concludes that the appearance of the painting has changed here and there because of all the damage over the years. The top layer of paint in Saul's cloak has partially disappeared and you're looking at the layer below. As a result, art historians have previously labeled the painting as 'not good enough for the master'.
The Mauritshuis subsequently chose to show the research in an exhibition. This is new in the Netherlands:in its recent Late Rembrandt exhibition, the Rijksmuseum has deliberately left the public in the dark about research into paintings with later overpaints and a greatly altered appearance.
Noble:“We wanted to show the research step by step to the public:what happened, what techniques did we use. Similar to a Crime Scene Investigation Here a team of different types of experts investigated the painting in order to uncover the facts. In addition, people often think that a restorer only restores paintings, but there is so much more going on behind the scenes.” The case is now closed and a masterpiece is back where it belongs.
The exhibition Rembrandt? The Case of Saul and David deals with scientific research and restoration techniques surrounding a single painting by Rembrandt. The sleek exhibition presents next to the restored Saul and David some other paintings and drawings by the Biblical duo.
Head of Education Epco Runia takes visitors through digital lectures along the various issues of restorers and experts in their work. Anyone who wants to can participate with the available tablets and thus receive additional information. Furthermore, the latest 3D printing techniques can be seen in a deceptively real 3D reproduction of the painting, in its original format.
The exhibition can be seen from 11 June to 14 September 2015 in the Mauritshuis, The Hague. See their website for more information. The investigation of the Saul and David is part of the NWO Science4arts programme.