Rembrandt, as active as ever
Rembrandt - Landscape with arched bridge
The Gemäldegalerie has announced that a landscape hitherto attributed to Govert Flinck is actually the work of his master, Rembrandt van Rijn.
Image: Rembrandt, "Landscape with arched bridge."
With 20 paintings by the artist, the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin holds one of the finest collections of Rembrandt's works in the world, alongside the National Gallery in London and, of course, the Rijskmuseum in Amsterdam. "Landscape with Arched Bridge" was acquired by the museum in 1924 as a genuine Rembrandt, but in the late 1980s it was attributed to Govert Flinck, Rembrandt's pupil, by the Rembrandt Research Project. Now, as the museum explains, "recent examinations of the Berlin painting and the evaluation of technical photographs, which were not available in 1989, have now confirmed that the work was painted by the artist himself. It is now possible to identify changes and corrections in the painting that were made during the painting process."
This is not the only Rembrandt to be rediscovered in relatively recent times. Last year, the Italian news agency ANSA reported the discovery of a painting that could be the lost "Adoration of the Magi" by Rembrandt van Rijn, painted around 1632/1633. In 2018, a study confirmed that a "Portrait of a Young Gentleman" acquired by Dutch dealer Jan Six in 2016 as the work of a Rembrandt follower was actually a work by the master.
Despite the fact that Rembrandt included landscapes as backgrounds for several of his mythological and religious scenes ("The Rape of Europa," "Appearance of the Risen Christ to Mary Magdalene"), his "pure" landscapes are relatively rare. The most famous example is possibly "The Mill" (1645-48, National Gallery of Art, Washington), a work whose attribution to the master was also doubted in the past. Also preserved in Germany are his "River Landscape with Ruins" and "Winter Landscape" (both in Kassel, Wilhelmshöhe Palace), and his "Mountain Landscape with Approaching Storm" (Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum).

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