Haggerty Museum announces plans to acquire Rembrandt Workshop Painting

(Milwaukee, WI) The Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University has announced plans to bring to Milwaukee The Philosopher, ca. 1650-1655, a painting long attributed to Rembrandt. Acquiring The Philosopher for the museum will be a project of the Friends of the Haggerty Museum in celebration of the Museum's twentieth anniversary in 2004.

The Philosopher surfaced in March of 2003 at the Maastricht Art Fair in Holland, and again at the New York Armory Show in May of 2003. Curtis Carter, director of the Haggerty Museum of Art, saw the painting on a visit to the armory show. He determined to find a way to bring the painting to Milwaukee.

The Philosopher has long been attributed to Rembrandt because of its exceptional quality. It was reputedly in the collection of the Archbishop of Canterbury during the first half of the eighteenth century (as Rembrandt), it passed into the collection of Maurice Kann, Paris (as Rembrandt) and Marcus Kappel, Berlin as (Rembrandt) and was with the Duveen Brothers, New York from 1928-1948 (as Rembrandt). It was exhibited as a Rembrandt at the Royal Academy, London; The Art Gallery of Ontario; The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; The St. Louis Art Museum; Jeu de Paume, Paris; The Fogg Museum, Cambridge; and also in New York, Berlin and other venues throughout the world.

A similar "Philosopher" painting on panel, completed around the same time at the Rembrandt workshop, is located in the collection of the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.

"The Museum is very excited to bring this important masterpiece to the Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University where it can be enjoyed by all," said museum director Curtis L. Carter. "We anticipate that many visitors will come to the Haggerty to see this painting."The painting is currently on display at the museum.

The Philosopher has long been recognized as a great masterpiece of seventeenth-century Dutch art. The painting was featured in the 1772 auction of the Louis-Michel van Loo collection in Paris. After its sale, the painting remained out of public view for over 130 years. In 1905, the painting was rediscovered by Willem von Bode and traveled widely as a work of Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669). The Philosopher was attributed to Rembrandt until 1969. Recent scholarship suggests that the painting is possibly by Willem Drost, one of Rembrandt's most gifted students and an important Dutch artist in his own right.