Demoted

The monthly meeting of the New York Microscopical Society pursued its calm way fortnight ago until Dr. Maximilian Toch, michro-chemist, arose to speak. Dr. Toch's specialty is the analysis of paint, the verification of works of art by microphotography. To the assembled scientists he showed numerous lantern slides, explained his theory: a painting may be identified by magnification of the artist's brushstrokes, which are as characteristic as his handwriting. Like a firecracker came a specific statement: None of the Rembrandts in the Metropolitan Museum is genuine, with the possible exception of The Gilder from the Havemeyer Collection.

Attacks on the authenticity of the 26 presumable Rembrandts in the Metropolitan are nothing new. In 1923 Dr. John Charles Van Dyke, professor of the history of art in Rutgers University, announced that in his opinion there were no genuine Rembrandts in the Metropolitan; further, that there were only 35 genuine Rembrandts in the world.* And in the past six or seven years a Scotch chemist named Arthur P. Laurie has been travelling from museum to museum with his microscope, his X-ray and ultra violet machines, casting doubt upon half the Rembrandts of Europe and the U. S.

To all attacks the Metropolitan Museum and Curator of Paintings Bryson Burroughs have made no reply. They made none last week. But sharp-eyed reporters noted that at least one Metropolitan canvas had been demoted. One of the most important "Rembrandts" acquired by the museum bore last week a new tag:

THE SIBYL

WILLEM DROST (?)

Assistant curators insisted that the new label had nothing to do with the remarks of Micro-Chemist Toch, the painting had been reassigned to Drost (a Rembrandt pupil) several months ago when the picture was cleaned.

Experts sprang to the defense of the Rembrandts. Dr. William R. Valentiner, director of the Detroit Museum of Art, who has officially approved hundreds of paintings sold in the U. S., was at work last week on a catalog of Rembrandts owned in the U. S. From Florida he sent a telegram: WHAT WILL BECOME OF THE ENJOYMENT OF ART BY THE GENERAL PUBLIC IF THE GREATEST MASTERPIECES ARE EXPOSED TO SUCH ARBITRARY CRITICISM.

Hermann Voss, curator of paintings in the Berlin State Museums, rushed off a boat in New York harbor bristling with indignation. "I would like to ask Dr. Toch," said he, "whether he means to oppose the opinion of the entire artistic world with regard to the authenticity of works believed today to have been painted by Rembrandt."

*The Metropolitan Museum did not acquire the six Rembrandts of the Havemeyer Collection until 1929. Rembrandt authenticators limit their attacks to his paintings, do not attempt to deal with the thousands of proofs of Rembrandt etchings.

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