It was the best of times in 17th-century Holland—known as the Dutch Golden Age. The economy was thriving and wealthy merchants were building town house mansions along the Amsterdam canals, installing luxurious furniture and paintings. But for Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), it became the worst of times—his beautiful, beloved, young wife Saskia died at age 30, as well as their three infants. Only his son Titus, who later became his dealer, survived.

Certainly everybody knows Rembrandt. He is at the very top of the list of the greatest artists who ever lived, along with Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Titian, who was an occasional mentor. The lust to acquire Rembrandt paintings and etchings was particularly strong among American collectors around the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The great industrialists like Henry Clay Frick, Andrew Mellon, J. P. Morgan, and J. Paul Getty were competing, relying on scholars and their erudite dealers, such as Duveen, to snap up as many Rembrandts as they could for them. The American millionaires were eager to buy European culture, especially the Old Masters. Herein lay the problem.

Rembrandt in America, which recently opened at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, explores the issue of American connoisseurship of the works of Rembrandt. The artist often worked completely alone; his sad genius is obvious in the emotional portraits touched only by the hand of the master. But he not only had a circle of contemporary mentors and colleagues, such as Jan Lievens and Pieter Lastman, he also had many students, whom he trained to copy his work in his studio workshop. Always desperate for money and drinking too much, Rembrandt occasionally allowed his fledgeling artists to finish his paintings. He would then sign them, hoping for a quick sale. This brought up the problem of attribution. Which paintings were authentic, executed 100 percent by Rembrandt?

The race for Rembrandt resulted in a great influx of Rembrandt paintings into America, and now the United States is a center for research on attribution. The effort is known as the Rembrandt Research project. One of the project’s findings is that many works have been misattributed—claimed as “autograph paintings”(i.e., painted entirely by Rembrandt)—when in fact research has proven otherwise. And there still remains a handful of paintings over which scholarly opinion differs.

The exhibition offers viewers the opportunity to test their sense of connoisseurship by examining the paintings closely, developing their own clues as to who created them. There are 30 paintings definitely determined to be the work of Rembrandt. At least 15 to 20 paintings in the exhibition were once attributed to Rembrandt but are now said to be the work of his pupils and contemporaries. The dilemma has had a devastating effect on the current art market.

Born in Leiden in 1606, Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was the son of a prosperous miller. The young man decided early on to become an artist, yet his first paintings were merely hints of what was to come. By the 1630s he had moved to Amsterdam, where he quickly gained financial recognition and accolades there for his elegant, commissioned portraits. Flattering portraits of the city’s haute bourgeoisie brought him wealth and fame. At the height of his success, Rembrandt and Saskia, cousin of the artist’s business partner, bought an elegant home on the edge of the Jewish quarter. Soon however Rembrandt’s fortunes dwindled; he began spending money faster than he was making it. Financial problems and difficulty with his mistresses after Saskia’s death plagued the artist the rest of his life.

A handful of portraits in the exhibition confirm Rembrandt’s genius. There is no doubt that Rembrandt’s heart-wrenching self-portrait painted in 1659, just 10 years before his death, on loan from the National Gallery of Art, is authentic. The grieving, troubled artist is recalling a seesaw life of success and failure, family loss and despair. The viewer can easily feel his loneliness.

Equally gripping is his allegorical portrait of Lucretia, painted a few years earlier in 1666. Lucretia, the wife of a Roman nobleman was known for her virtue and loyalty. After being raped by Sextus Tarquinius, son of the ruling tyrant, the young girl revealed the crime to her husband and father and then fatally stabbed herself, choosing death over disgrace. The Minneapolis Institute of Art painting reveals her ultimate personal despair and shows a bloodied Lucretia as she is about to die. Her grief is almost unfathomable.

Portraits, landscapes, and etchings constitute most of the oeuvre of Rembrandt. The North Carolina Museum of Art exhibit focuses on the master’s stunning portraits.The exhibition, along with its handsome catalog, travels to the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Minneapolis Institute of Art in 2012. 

See Rembrandt in America at the North Carolina Museum of Art through January 22, 2012. For more information, call 919.839.6262 or access www.ncartmuseum.org.

Ginger Levit is a private art dealer focusing on fine French and American paintings. She writes about art, antiques, and travel for several publications. Contact her at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .