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...Dyke Flouts the Unanimous Opinion of the World The reputation of Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn (1606-1669), long ranked as the greatest painter of the Dutch school and among the half-dozen greatest of the world, received a severe jolt when, in a large, expensive book, Rembrandt and His School.* Dr. John Charles Van Dyke, Professor of the History of Art at Rutgers College, attacked the alleged Rembrandt myth, assiduously fostered by critics, collectors and the public, which has ascribed over 800 paintings of varying merit to the master. He finished by conceding authenticity to a scant 35. The rest...
Among Professor Van Dyke's "35 genuine Rembrandts " is included not a single one in any American gallery. He rejects the 18 in the Metropolitan (Manhattan), the Portrait of a Girl in the Chicago Art Institute, two in the Widener collection, which he thinks are Vermeers, and those in the Byers collection (Pittsburgh), the Evans and Gardiner collections (Boston), the Walters collection (Baltimore). The chief Metropolitan Rembrandts are the group of 13 bequeathed by Benjamin Altman in 1913, including the Old Woman Cutting Her Nails, Pilate Washing His Hands, Toilet of Bathsheba, one of the many self-portraits...
European galleries fare little better at Prof. Van Dyke's hands. Of the 23 Rembrandts in the Louvre, only four are genuine, he says; four out of 21 in the National Gallery, London; two out of 43 in the Hermitage, Petrograd; and three out of 26 in the Berlin gallery. Professor Van Dyke does not quarrel with the quality of many of the pictures he rejects. They are beautiful and representative works of arts, but not by Rembrandt. The Old Woman Cutting Her Nails, for instance, is an " early and violent example " of Nicholas Maes, who is esteemed...
...Dyke's book has naturally provoked a chorus of opposition on the part of critics and museum directors. His views are flatly opposed not only to those of Bode, but of Valentiner, Muther, Bredius, De Groot, McColl and others who have made a life-long study of Rembrandt. The Metropolitan authorities, represented by Bryson Burroughs, curator of paintings, frankly deride his opinions, and believe their Rembrandts genuine. G. Frank Muller, E. M. Sperling, Raymond Henniker-Heaton, and other American experts are equally skeptical, though Joseph Pennell, the etcher, inclines to Van Dyke's side of the controversy...
...Dyke is 67 years old, has been on the Rutgers faculty since...