Only a handful of people in the world have the authority to determine whether a painting is a genuine Rembrandt. The name that tops that list is Ernst van de Wetering, the head of Amsterdam’s Rembrandt Research Project (RRP). When it comes to authenticating a work by the Dutch master, “one argument is never enough,” he says. “It’s only the combination of elements that can add up to a likelihood that can border on certainty.” Here are some of the clues that led van de Wetering to the conclusion that The Young Rembrandt as Democritus, the Laughing Philosopher is, in fact, a self-portrait.

SIGNATURE
Contrary to popular wisdom, an artist’s autograph is rarely helpful in attribution, but in this case it is quite revealing. From 1625 to 1633, the young painter was toying with his signature, changing it constantly, and this picture bears an atypical version: three capital letters, RHL, with the R connected to the L (which stands for Leiden, his birthpace) by a crossbar that indicates an H (which stands for Harmenszoon, “son of Harmen”). This is a distinctive monogram that Rembrandt used on only a few paintings done in or around 1628 (see a similar example, at left). Most forgers would choose the more common, later form of his signature, simply “Rembrandt.”

SUPPORT
Copper is a far less telling surface than canvas or wood because, unlike those materials, it cannot be traced to a specific time and place. Rembrandt rarely painted on the metal, but because he was a prolific etcher, he had many copper plates in his studio. Significantly, he started etching in 1628, and van de Wetering says that one of his etchings from that year, Petrus and Johannes by the Temple Gate, is exactly the same size as the Moore Allen & Innocent painting.

BRUSHSTROKES
Brushwork is generally thought of as an artist’s “handwriting.” Rembrandt discovered as a young painter that he could draw a viewer’s eye to important areas of a composition, such as highlights in a face or folds of a gown, by using dense, visible strokes. “Rembrandt never wants you to forget that he is using paint to create an illusion,” says van de Wetering. His distinctive technique is evident here.

COPIES
A reproduction of The Young Rembrandt as Democritus, the Laughing Philosopher by the 18th- to 19th-century Flemish engraver Lambertus Antonius Claessens appeared in a 1966 Rembrandt catalogue by the German art historian Kurt Bauch as Le rieur (“The Laugher”), after Frans Hals. It was at the back of the book under the heading “Paintings by Rembrandt that are only known by copies and reproduction.” Bauch assumed there was a vanished canvas by Rembrandt that perhaps both Hals and Claessens had copied. Van de Wetering thinks this is it.

"Rembrandt or Not?" originally appeared in the June 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's June 2008 Table of Contents.