Four Woodpiles

It’s a tiny little portrait, only six inches tall and five inches wide. “Head of a Bearded Man” was donated to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford in 1951. Pasted to the back is an auctioneer’s note from 1777 declaring it to be the work of Rembrandt. In 1982 it was dismissed as one of many copies; a fake. For decades it sat unnoticed in the museum’s basement. But a recent analysis by prominent dendrochronologist Dr. Peter Klein is changing all that. (I had to look that word up. It means someone who studies archaeological artifacts by analyzing tree rings.) Dr. Klein claims the board the bearded man is painted on came from the same tree as the one used in Rembrandt’s “Andromeda Chained to the Rocks.” It doesn’t exactly prove the Dutch master painted the little portrait, but it does prove it came from his studio. I guess it’s always wise to get a second opinion.