Leseprobe

161 Bode’s influence and his power to suppress doubts and opposing evidence, and partly because scientific studies on the material produced ambiguous results. Until the late 1990s, the bust was displayed as a piece from the Renaissance, albeit without the direct ascription to Leonardo. In a similar way, our perception of Man with Golden Helmet in the Berlin Gemälde- galerie might be altered given that, since 1986, the painting has no longer been considered ‘a Rembrandt’ but a work of his studio or ‘circle’ (Umkreis), as its object label indicates. Put forth as a prime example of depreciation through re-attribution, the piece is shown as a framed painting hanging on a museum wall on the title page of an exhibition cata- logue entitled ‘Wertwechsel: ZumWert des Kunstwerks’ (Value Changes: On the Value of the Artwork). The catalogue was published by the Cologne Museum für Angewandte Kunst to accompany the 2001 exhibition of the same name. The painting also played an important role in the exhibition, with the curators allegedly having added a wall label to say that they would have neither requested, nor received this loan piece if it was still con- sidered a Rembrandt. 21 Looking at the evolution of the research on Rembrandt, we find what may be the most remarkable, and certainly the most well-known fluctuations in the recognized scope of an œuvre: as Peter Geimer reminds us, Wilhelm Bode had originally identified 595 paintings as ‘Rembrandts’. In 1909, Valentiner counted only 558 pieces, while Abraham Bredius, in 1935, extended the scope to 630 pieces, of which 56 were removed again by Horst Gerson in 1969. 22 In 1968, at the beginning of the Rembrandt Research Project, manymore pieces were discounted; however, in the resulting 2014 pub- lication, Ernst van de Wetering re-evaluated the question of what would have to be con- sidered a ‘Rembrandt’ under the conditions of the artist’s workshop practices in the sev- enteenth century (336 paintings). 23 Just like expert statements, the work directories result- ing from research efforts represent an authority that object labels more or less willingly follow along with. Consensus cannot always be reached, with owners sometimes refusing to accept that their masterpiece is in fact a forgery. 24 Object labels suggest certainty—or at least they represent the received expert view, which sometimes is verified by the results of latest scientific studies on the objects. Thus, they are a kind of certificate of identity as, for example, official accreditations. The trust in the processes of authentication and in the museum system is considerably damaged when labels are changed. However, it is of course also the case that incomplete or ambigu­ ous labels point to unresolved art historical problems and the porousness of expertise. 25 25 Two examples are a casket and a trestle table at Berlin Kunstgewerbemuseum, labeled ‘Italy, 16 th and 19 th century’ and ‘16 th and 19 th century’ respectively. It is uncertain whether these objects are six- teenth-century pieces heavily renovated, amended, or copied in the nineteenth century, or whether they were made in the nineteenth century with sixteenth-century materials—we are instantly reminded of the problem of the Flora . Art trade in the nineteenth century, for lack of originals, brought forth a large number of such compounds.