This is simply too good to be tucked away in storage, DeWitt thought.
The painting was encased in a modern frame; when it was removed DeWitt could see clearly that the portrait panel was nestled into a bigger piece of wood that enlarged the painted surface.
Definitely 19th century, scholars had said. A forgery.
"Lloyd chose to question that," said Mark Tucker, the museum's senior curator of paintings.
The panel is now one of seven similar heads of Christ, drawn from collections worldwide, that are the core of "Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus," which opens at the Art Museum on Wednesday for a run through Oct. 30.
The show - 22 paintings, 17 drawings, and nine prints - is the first in Philadelphia to feature Rembrandt paintings, and the first Rembrandt exhibition of any kind here since 1932, when the Art Museum hosted a show of prints. It began its world tour at the Louvre this year and will continue at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
According to museum officials, it also represents the first time these portraits of Christ have been together since the middle of the 1650s, when Rembrandt declared bankruptcy and many of his most precious possessions were sold to satisfy creditors.
The exhibition strongly suggests that all the small portrait panels, including the one in the Johnson collection, are indeed by Rembrandt van Rijn. Beyond that, these portraits are central to - in fact, are probably studies for - two of the artist's greatest works, also in this exhibition: the Louvre's newly cleaned The Supper at Emmaus (1648) and The Hundred Guilder Print (c. 1649), so called because of its immense value. (One of the versions on view here of the etching, which depicts Christ preaching, is drawn from the Art Museum's own collection.)
