In this artwork, how is the Authorship discussed?
The painting was for a long time mistaken for being a portrait that Rembrandt made of his mother, hence the title of Rembrandt's Mother. It fitted with the ancient idea that Rembrandt had depicted many of his relatives in his paintings. His authorship seemed a foregone conclusion until 1900. During a major Rembrandt exhibition held in Amsterdam in 1898, when the painting was still in the collection of A. H. Hoekwater, it was presented as such, but soon after it came into doubt. In 1901, art historian Wilhelm Martin suggested in a book about Gerrit Dou that he was probably his author. He mentioned the style characteristics, pointing to Dou's use of the chiaroscuro and the smooth surface structure typical of his work, and also to the fact that Dou and Rembrandt, as well as Lievens, often used the same models. In fact, the old woman depicted here appears in works by all the three painters and Dou himself painted her several times.After 1900, it became increasingly clear that the designation of some of Rembrandt's models as his relatives was groundless. When the work was offered to the Rijksmuseum in November 1912 from the bequest of A. H. Hoekwater, it was therefore exhibited as a work by Dou under the current title. In 2005 it was one of the major works in the exhibition "Rembrandt's Mother, Myth and Reality", in the Museum De Lakenhal, in Leiden.
Amsterdam Rijksmuseum Gerrit Dou chiaroscuro Museum De Lakenhal Rembrandt Leiden