ENTERTAINMENT NEWS - The portraits of a newly married Dutch couple were jointly bought in 2015 by the Netherlands and France for 160 million euros ($174 million) from the wealthy Rothschild banking family in an unprecedented deal.
Teams from the Louvre in Paris and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam spent the past 18 months researching the paintings, before carefully removing at least six layers of old varnish as part of “an exciting adventure” to restore the canvases.
“They are undoubtedly completely painted by Rembrandt up to the smallest detail,” Rijksmuseum general director Taco Dibbits told reporters Monday, adding they were Rembrandt’s first and only full-length portraits of a married couple.
Wrangling over the portraits, captured around the time of the couple’s wedding in 1634, had threatened to sour relations between France and the Netherlands.
But the accord reached to avoid a bidding war will now see the two portraits alternate between the Rijksmuseum and the Louvre.
Affluent Amsterdam couple Marten Soolmans, 20, and Oopjen Coppit, 22, commissioned Rembrandt to paint the separate portraits.
Both dressed fashionably in black with white lace ruffles, Soolmans is depicted holding a glove in his left hand, while Coppit holds a gold chain topped by a black-feathered fan and wears a four-row pearl necklace, with a band of pearls in her hair.
Using sophisticated scientific techniques, including ultra-violet scans, X-rays and macro X-ray fluorescence, restorers determined the two paintings once shared the same large piece of canvas.
It remains unknown however if the portraits were painted together and then separated, although restorers believe the canvas was split prior to painting.
Saving cultural heritage
Close analysis also revealed hidden details, such as doorways behind each person which Rembrandt later covered over by painting in a simple black curtain as a background.
The restoration has infused the paintings with new light, to show off the “incredible modernity” of Rembrandt’s original work, said Dibbits.
The details stand out, such as the exquisite lace ruffles on Marten’s shoes. It “feels as if you press them they will bounce back,” he said.
