Intro

0:00

[ Background Conversations ]

Was Rembrandt a student

0:13

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: Could it be the case
that Rembrandt was registered as a student

0:18

for a number of years but
didn’t attend university

0:22

but he did that because of the privileges?

0:24

You know exemption from the civic
guard for example and taxes.

0:31

> Dr. Mart van Duijn: Yeah, it’s very well
possible because these exemptions were also —

0:36

the students also had this
acceptance when they rematriculated.

0:41

So the price for studying
was 5 Stivers at that time

0:47

but it gave the same rights
as the first matriculation.

0:51

So it is in fact possible that
Rembrandt didn’t do any studying at all.

0:58

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: And we know for sure
that he didn’t graduate, he never got a degree

1:03

because there are records of that, aren’t there?

1:04

> Dr. Jef Schaeps: No.

1:05

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: No.

1:05

> Dr. Jef Schaeps: No, nothing about that.

No graduation

1:08

There was no graduation in the 17th century
students were enrolled in the university

1:15

for a few years and if they wanted then they
could do a PhD and write a dissertation.

1:20

But they could also just quit after
three years and take a job somewhere.

1:25

And there are no papers which record
graduation or anything like that so.

1:33

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: Other questions?

Etching needle

1:43

> Dr. Andrew Weislogel: Jonathan,
I thought of a question that came

1:46

up when you were giving your talk
which I found absolutely fascinating.

1:49

I can’t remember the specific
painting you were talking about

1:51

but you were describing the
texture of Rembrandt’s paint

1:55

in a certain area of clothing or something.

1:57

And you said you thought he might have used an
etching needle to get that particular texture.

2:03

And that’s something I’ve never thought
about and I wonder if you could say more

2:07

about your thoughts about that or if you’ve seen
that similar texture in other paintings as well?

2:12

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: Yeah, actually no
within the Jewish Bride yeah, the lines are just

Scratching

2:22

so thin and fine that I can’t
imagine what kind of tool he used.

2:29

But also and that seems to be one of the
things that distinguishes the scratching

2:36

that Jan Lievens uses and the
scratching that Rembrandt uses.

2:41

The scratching that Rembrandt uses that
in his early works that seems to me

2:47

to be always done with the butt-end of a brush.

2:52

But in paintings by Lievens where
he uses scratching that’s very,

2:58

very fine and delicate lines that are scratched.

3:02

And I wonder if those but I
would need a printing expert to.

3:05

So please take a good look at
paintings by Rembrandt and Lievens

3:13

and maybe you could tell me at some
point whether you think it’s viable

3:20

that he was using an etching needle.

3:25

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey:
Another possibility is a reed pen

3:27

which is something he used to draw with.

3:29

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: Yeah and
actually made an etching with a reed pen,

Rembrandts Etchings

3:31

one of his early self-portrait etchings.

3:36

It only exists in two impressions
because it was actually a disaster.

3:43

But you see the double lines of
the reed pen and there are also

3:50

in the landscape painting the
landscape with stone bridge

3:58

in the Rijksmuseum a
painting he used a reed pen actually

4:05

to make scratchings in that painting.

4:11

Melanie Gifford discovered that.

4:13

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: Oh very interesting.

4:14

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: Yeah.

4:14

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: And you will be able to
see some evidence of this scratching technique

4:17

in some of the paintings that
are here in our exhibition.

4:20

Turning the brush right around and using the
back end of it to scratch into the paint instead

4:25

of laying the paint down,
it’s a radical thing to.

4:28

Although there were artists in the
16th century who did it too so.

4:31

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: Yeah.

4:31

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: Rembrandt was not the first.

4:33

I only know that because I raised this at a
conference in Haarlem and there were people there

4:41

who slapped me on the wrist and said
no he wasn’t the first person to do it.

4:45

And but I don’t remember who they said
it was so we’ll find out, we’ll find out.

4:52

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: Yeah, but I’ve seen
it oddly enough in Avercamp, Hendrick Avercamp landscapes.

4:57

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: Okay.

4:58

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: There’s
some scratching in the foliage

5:02

and these are paintings from around 1610 or so.

5:06

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: Okay.

5:06

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: But I don’t know
of any artists who use it as much as.

5:10

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: Not as much no.

5:11

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: As
Lievens and Rembrandt.

Printing Press

5:14

> Dr. Arthur der Weduwen: If I may Stephanie,

5:15

I think in general you shouldn’t
believe everything you hear in Haarlem

5:18

because they also claimed for centuries
they invented the printing press so.

5:22

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: I sense a little.

5:24

> Dr. Arthur der Weduwen: [inaudible]Amsterdamer, don’t believe everything.

5:29

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: Okay.

5:30

Well let’s open it up to the floor, who
has a question for one of our speakers?

5:34

Yes ma’am.

5:34

> About the printing key, did he number
his prints and if not, do you have any idea

5:42

of how many prints he was
making from one painting?

5:46

> Dr. Andrew Weislogel: The practice

5:47

of numbering print editions is really a
development of the later 19th century.

5:51

So none of the printmakers at this time were
actually numbering impressions of prints.

5:58

So what we know about the number of impressions
that Rembrandt was able to make from his plates

6:03

for example comes from surmise about
the printmaking technique that was used,

6:08

in other words how the plate would ware.

6:11

A deeply etched plate would be able to
produce more impressions for example

6:15

than a dry point plate which involves direct
scratching into the surface of the plate

6:20

and is a very fugitive, the lines
of the dry point are very fugitive.

6:24

And then of course the other metric we have is
how many impressions survive from a given plate.

6:33

So but it’s difficult to say for
certain how many he initially printed

6:37

but you can make some inferences for example
to some extent, and I didn’t talk at all

6:45

about Japanese paper for
example, but that was a support

6:47

that Rembrandt used starting
in the later 1640’s.

6:51

He often when he considered that a plate was
finished, he would often pull an edition

6:56

on Japanese paper because this was a luxury
support and the plate wore very well printing

7:03

onto Japanese paper instead of European paper.

7:05

So we think in those instances he was maybe
printing 20, 30 impressions or something

7:10

like that at the outset from a plate.

7:12

And you know you gauge the remaining
number of those that survive

7:16

and you can use that as a metric.

7:18

But it’s really it’s really
difficult to say for sure.

7:23

> An estimate, what would be an estimate?

7:27

> Dr. Andrew Weislogel: An estimate of
a Rembrandt edition that he was printing

7:29

from his plate would probably
be somewhere in the, you know,

7:32

the 30 to 40, 50 range something like that.

7:34

> What would be the cost, like
how much would he sell prints

7:37

for compared to an original painting?

7:41

> Dr. Andrew Weislogel: She’s asking how much
the individual impressions would sell for.

7:46

Again that’s a highly variable thing
and there’s actually not a whole lot

7:50

of information available
about that specifically.

7:55

However the different types of paper, the
different supports that Rembrandt used

7:59

to make his prints came with
different values associated with them.

8:04

So impressions on Japanese paper would command
more of a premium than those on European paper.

8:11

Impressions on vellum or calfskin for example
even more than Japanese paper probably.

8:17

But we can’t say you know aside — well
this is something that Stephanie could speak

8:21

to probably better than I or Jonathan.

8:23

[ Inaudible ]

8:25

And I was just going to mention yeah, there
is the Hundred Guilder Print that I mentioned

8:28

where there are two separate
documentary instances where impressions

8:31

of that print sold actually for 100
guilders which is how it gets this sobriquet.

8:37

But aside from that not much is known
about what individual impressions

8:42

of Rembrandt prints sold for in the market.

8:45

> So he didn’t number his prints but
they were numbering in books, they were.

8:52

I’m afraid they were not

8:53

They weren’t?

8:54

Because I was looking at the one
book I thought [inaudible] editions.

Print runs

9:00

> Dr. Arthur der Weduwen: Yeah, so that’s
what we’ve reconstructed of different editions

9:02

but we don’t know the actual
print run of those editions.

9:06

So information of print runs is only
incidental generally from archival information

9:13

where you have payments to particular
publishers or they are writing in correspondence

9:18

to colleagues to say you know oh I’ve
just printed 2,000 copies of Habermann.

9:22

And so you can reconstruct across various
genres what general print runs are like

9:29

and for printed books in this
period it tends to be anywhere

9:33

between about 500 and 2,000 copies per edition.

9:37

So when you see those 66 editions of
Habermann that may be about 66,000 copies

9:44

or between you know 30,000 and 70,000 so.

9:49

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: Prints would never
have been produced in that large an edition.

9:53

But the idea was it was a relatively
new technology at that time.

9:57

Modern printmakers limit the number
in order to control the price.

10:01

But in those days the whole point was
to get as many as you possibly could.

10:06

And the one thing that maybe wasn’t
entirely clear is that over a hundred

10:11

of Rembrandt’s copperplates
still exist and people continued

10:14

to print them right up until the 20th century.

10:17

So this is why this is such
a puzzle for collectors.

10:20

You can buy a Rembrandt print on eBay for
$2,000 but you’re probably getting something

10:26

that was printed in the 19th century.

10:27

So it started out as a Rembrandt and it
still is a Rembrandt but it’s a Rembrandt

10:31

that was made by someone else long ago.

10:33

And that’s why this watermark and paper research
is fascinating because if the paper dates

10:39

to 1645 then it was printed
by Rembrandt himself.

10:42

So it’s a fascinating thing.

Library closure

10:45

Pierre.

10:46

> Stephanie you mentioned and two of your
panellists also a fact that interested me

10:50

which was the closure of Leiden
University library to students.

10:55

Could people say a little bit more
about that because that seemed

10:58

to be potentially a rather
interesting sidelight on all this?

11:05

> Dr. Arthur der Weduwen:
Absolutely and at one of the —

11:08

with the establishment of the universities,
most universities in this period have a library.

11:12

But the problem is that you know today we are so
ingrained that university libraries are indeed

11:17

for students they’re really not
meant for students all over Europe.

11:20

There’s only a couple of exceptions
where access is really generous.

11:24

A lot of this has to do with
the fact that the sort of books

11:27

that students will use they’re
expected to buy them themselves,

11:30

they will be relatively cheap textbooks.

11:32

The other issue that’s consistently
cited is the issue of theft

11:36

that you know who do you allow in.

11:39

Leiden actually starts out with a very
generous policy where many different keys

11:43

to the room are created and handed
out to professors who then hand them

11:48

out to their favourite students and the like.

11:50

And this very quickly devolves into chaos

11:53

and two years later they say all right we’re
changing the locks; we’re going to have one key

11:57

and the librarian is the
only one who has that key.

12:00

So even if you were a particularly
prodigious student

12:03

and one of your professors really liked you,

12:05

you could probably say you
know will you let me have a go

12:07

in the library and that sometimes happened.

12:10

But in general these were
resources meant for professors

12:13

for really substantial heavy expensive works

12:17

that they wouldn’t be expected
to buy themselves.

12:21

In one other Dutch university
in Franeker in the north

12:23

of the country they had a wonderful
university collection and 20 years

12:28

after it was established, they sold off all
the books in formats which were not folios.

12:34

And with that money they bought more
folios because that was the idea.

12:37

Again if we provide these
expensive books for our professors,

12:41

they will have libraries themselves.

12:43

In many towns professorial libraries were
much bigger than the university library.

12:48

> But surely the Thysian
Library, the Bibliotheca Thysiana

12:52

in Leiden itself must have
been an exception to that rule.

12:55

> Dr. Arthur der Weduwen: Absolutely.

12:56

> Because of the donors will
specifying that anybody could use it.

13:01

> Dr. Arthur der Weduwen: Yes and Thysius
was really an exception to this rule

13:05

in early modern Europe in that moment.

13:07

There were several others like
him but they were not the norm.

13:10

I mean Thysius is also unusual because he
specifically left so much money for the creation

13:16

of this library whereas most
other collectors were very happy

13:19

to have their collection sold
off or anyway if they were dead,

13:23

they didn’t have much of a choice.

13:24

And they often said I would love my
collection to be a beautiful public library

13:27

and then the heirs would look at the
amount of money they can make and thought.

13:33

> The irony is that I tried
to get into that library

13:36

and the irony is I wasn’t able to get into it.

13:39

So tell me that’s unjust.

13:42

> Dr. Jef Schaeps: Well one
thing you should not forget

Manuscripts

13:44

about the library it was not
just a library of printed books

13:48

but there were also quite a lot of manuscripts.

13:51

So the bookcase we saw which was the bequest
of Scaliger contained mostly manuscripts.

13:59

And of course they were even more
prone to being stolen, I think.

14:05

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: And very
rare so you want to keep them very.

14:08

> Dr. Jef Schaeps: Yes, absolutely.

14:09

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: Carefully.

14:09

The Thysius library which was just
mentioned is a remarkable place in Leiden

14:15

which is the private library of one
individual which was begun in the 1650’s.

14:21

> Dr. Jef Schaeps: Fifties,
I think it is open 54.

14:22

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: When he
was a student at Leiden, I think.

14:24

He also had prints, he only had
one print by Rembrandt, I think,

14:28

if that oddly enough but it still exists.

14:32

This whole library intact the way it was
in the 17th century in the same building

14:37

on the same shelves, it’s a fascinating thing.

14:39

And yes Pierre you can’t always get in
there but I know someone who knows someone

14:42

so the next time you go to Leiden let me know.

14:47

Other questions?

14:48

[ Inaudible ]

14:52

> Do we know whether Rembrandt or his
contemporaries ever cancelled their plates

Cancelling plates

14:57

or was that a practice that was common or no?

15:01

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: That’s another thing
that only 19th-century printmakers started to do

15:05

to cancel it so that, I mean if
you wanted to stop printing it

15:09

in those days you would probably just rub
it out and reuse it for another print,

15:13

you wouldn’t bother to cancel it
and yet somehow keep it intact.

15:17

That’s an odd phenomenon that comes along later.

15:20

> Dr. Andrew Weislogel: Or you could
turn it over and use the other side.

15:22

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey:
Use the other side yeah.

15:25

> I have a question about the
wire project which looked amazing.

15:29

You mentioned a couple of different techniques
that people had used to look at their paper.

15:35

Is there a particular technique that
shows you the most about the structure

15:40

of the paper and the lines that are there?

Low energy xrays

15:44

> Dr. Andrew Weislogel: Yeah, absolutely.

15:46

The low-energy x-ray or the beta radiography
these are you know radiographic techniques

15:52

that use a low amount of radiation
to penetrate paper and they’re able

15:57

to therefore photograph the
paper characteristics, watermarks

16:00

and chain lines quite adequately
without any interference

16:03

from the ink on the surface of the paper.

16:07

The drawbacks to those techniques
is that they are expensive,

16:11

they require equipment that’s usually anchored

16:13

down at a particular institution
and can’t travel around.

16:16

And of course they involve radiography
so they’re regulated by the government.

16:21

But those are still the best.

16:24

Other techniques are being developed
now using infrared techniques

16:28

and actually using a combination of
transmitted light, an invisible light,

16:32

and an algorithm that cancels out
the ink on the surface of the paper.

16:38

Those are still under development at the moment
but that’s a promising avenue for going forward

16:45

because that would be non-invasive,
relatively inexpensive, and portable.

16:49

> Thank you.

16:53

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: Other questions?

16:53

Yes ma’am.

17:03

> Thank you.

17:03

This is open to the entire panel.

17:05

In Jonathan Bikker’s talk we talked about
how Rembrandt almost stole the technique

17:09

from Jan Lievens of scratching into the paint.

17:13

And I was just wondering do you
guys have any other opinions

17:15

on how Jan Lievens influenced
Rembrandt as an artist or vice versa?

17:20

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey:
That’s for you Jonathan.

17:25

[ Laughter ]

Leiden and Rembrandt

17:30

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: Yeah,
that’s a big question.

17:32

Lievens he was nine when he started his
apprenticeship, he was one year older or younger

17:40

than Rembrandt so he had a
big head start on Rembrandt.

17:45

He also — we know that they both had as
second teachers Pieter Lastman in Amsterdam.

17:53

Lievens studied with him according to Orlers,
the Leiden burgomaster who wrote in 1641.

18:03

He said that Lievens studied with Lastman for
two years and Rembrandt for only half a year.

18:11

And yeah, we know that Lievens had a
very big influence on Rembrandt but then

18:21

at a certain point they seemed
to be at the same level

18:25

and Rembrandt actually starts taking the lead,
and I think Lievens becomes the follower.

18:35

But you might have.

18:36

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: No that’s
your opinion and that’s a fine opinion.

18:39

It’s probably the most — well yeah, I mean
it’s an odd phenomenon that we remember

18:44

and we all remember Rembrandt today and
Lievens is known only to the specialists.

18:48

But he was ahead of the game at first.

18:50

And Dr. Bader was particularly fond of
Lievens, we have over a dozen works by him

18:55

in this collection, more than
anywhere else probably, maybe even —

18:59

I don’t know how many are in the
Rijksmuseum, probably we have more than you do.

19:02

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: We have 11.

19:03

[ Inaudible ]

19:04

We have 11.

19:05

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: You have 11.

19:06

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: Yeah.

19:06

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: Okay so pretty close.

19:08

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: How many do you have?

19:10

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: It’s
either 12 or 14, I meant to count

19:13

but I forget but it’s quite remarkable.

19:15

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: We’ll buy more.

19:15

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: Good idea, good idea.

19:19

Yeah, but it’s a fascinating case of two
very talented, very ambitious young people

19:27

who were looking over each other’s shoulder.

19:29

And I’m sure that the competitive presence of
the other one helped both of them to excel.

19:35

And you can see evidence of that in our show,
we’ve got work by both of them there you can.

19:39

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: Do
you have an opinion on?

19:41

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: And also in
printmaking, in printmaking they were both

19:43

at the same time learning together.

Studio sharing

19:45

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: Do you
have an opinion on the theory

19:52

that they shared a studio in Leiden?

19:55

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: For a long time people
thought that they did but it seems less likely

19:58

to me nowadays just because
Lievens worked on a different scale.

20:01

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: Yeah.

20:02

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: And he must have
gotten started sooner than Rembrandt,

20:05

he must have even had his own studio before
Rembrandt settled in and started his.

20:09

So but they certainly were using the same
models and the same props and maybe the same —

20:15

I don’t know about Lievens’ watermarks
whether they were using the same printer

20:18

or not that’s also a possibility.

20:20

Because Van Vliet made prints after
Lievens, as well as after Rembrandt.

20:25

But if they weren’t physically sharing
the same studio they were definitely back

20:29

and forth all the time, sharing
ideas and physical attributes so.

20:35

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: Yeah.

20:36

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: What might
prove it would be if you could figure

20:38

out that the actual chemical composition
of the paint was exactly the same.

20:43

Because if they were both in
the same studio on the same day

20:47

and the assistant is mixing the
pigments and they both go and take

20:50

from that same batch then they
at least on that day they were

20:54

in the same place at the same time.

20:55

But it doesn’t mean that they worked that way.

20:58

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: Yeah, but
the chemistry of pigments isn’t.

20:59

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: It’s not that specific.

21:01

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: Is it?

21:02

> The pigments will be easier than the media,

21:07

even now they’re getting incredibly
detailed analysis of Rembrandt paint media

21:14

with Karen Grodin’s study for example.

21:17

And they’re finding trace elements
of things like cherry gum and really,

21:24

really minor components that we barely
have the techniques to identify.

21:29

So it’s possible but it won’t give us the whole
picture, there’s always going to be things

A myth

21:45

that we’re missing partly because we
don’t even know what we’re looking

21:49

for when they’re in that small quantity.

21:52

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: But there’s a sentence
in Orlers’ biography of Rembrandt that he says

21:59

after studying with Lastman in Amsterdam he
goes back to Lievens and works on his own.

22:06

So that’s.

22:07

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: Yeah, yeah.

22:07

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: Joshua
pointed out that it’s probably a myth

22:09

that they shared a studio based on
that sentence in Orlers’ biography.

22:12

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: It’s an
interesting — yeah that makes good sense.

22:13

Yes ma’am.

22:19

> Shifting topics
rather dramatically.

22:21

Why did Rembrandt go bankrupt,
was he a womanizer, a drinker?

22:25

I know starving artists but he’d been around.

22:34

[ Laughter ]

22:36

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: That’s a long story.

22:38

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: Oh
I know why he went bankrupt.

22:40

This is my theory.

Money management

22:43

No it’s blamed on a lot of things that he
didn’t manage his money very well for example.

22:51

But I think that the major thing was that he
was making, there was a kind of tulip mania

22:57

in the 1640’s but instead of tulip
bulbs it was for old master prints.

23:04

And Rembrandt we know in the biography,
his biography in Baldinucci for example,

23:11

Baldinucci says that Rembrandt would go to an
auction and because he esteemed art so much,

23:22

the fine art so much that he
would come out immediately

23:25

with an extravagant bid for an old master print.

23:32

And we know he paid extravagant prices
for especially prints by Lucas van Leyden

23:38

because he thought of himself
as the 17th century heir

23:42

to Leiden’s greatest artists
of the 16th century.

23:48

But anyway he wasn’t the only one who was paying
these extravagant amounts of money for prints,

23:56

there were others who were doing this too.

23:58

So it was a kind of tulip mania
but then for old master prints.

24:02

What Rembrandt didn’t foresee and I don’t
think we can blame him either for that

24:06

because nowadays we don’t see
financial crises or depressions

24:12

and he didn’t see that coming either.

24:15

But because of the Anglo-Dutch war in 1652 the
price of these prints which was his investment,

24:26

his way of investing they plummeted.

24:31

And so the prices he paid for these
prints he couldn’t recuperate this money

24:37

and I think that’s the main reason why when
all artists were under a lot of pressure

24:46

because of the economic — because
the economy went down the drain

24:53

because of the Anglo-Dutch
war, first Anglo-Dutch war.

24:58

That Rembrandt didn’t have the
means to realize ready cash yeah.

25:05

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: Interesting yeah, he was a bit
of a spendthrift overall and he bought a house

25:10

for his beautiful new wife in 1639 which
was very expensive and he started defaulting

25:17

on the mortgage payment so that’s another thing.

25:20

So the print buying is an important part of
it but he wasn’t a good money manager overall.

25:25

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: Yeah and
in the 1640’s after the Night Watch

25:29

and a month before he delivered
the Night Watch Saskia died.

25:33

After that point for about nine years
he paints hardly anything at all.

25:41

And so his income would have been reduced.

25:45

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: That too.

25:46

> Dr. Jonathan Bikker: Because of that yeah.

25:49

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey:
Interesting story, interesting man.

25:52

Okay Max, how are we on time?

25:54

> Perhaps one more question.

25:55

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: One
more question, one more question.

26:01

Anyone? Anyone here at the panel?

26:04

Oh okay yes go ahead.

26:07

> I’m just wondering when you were talking
about like using the watermarks on the paper

26:15

and everything to determine where these prints
were made and at what time periods and that

26:25

if there was any work done on let’s say
the different inks that had been used

26:30

at different times or from
different areas to make these prints?

26:36

If there has been any study
done on that aspect of it?

26:40

> Dr. Andrew Weislogel:
That’s an excellent question

26:42

and actually something I don’t
know very much about at the moment.

26:45

But it’s actually a timely thing because I
know a couple of conservators who were starting

26:51

to study the make-up of inks
and the profiles of inks.

26:58

The way I understand it unless the
ink was considerably you know deviated

27:03

from the standard black colour the
make-up of most inks is relatively similar

27:09

and the printing inks used to make
Rembrandt’s prints and most other prints

27:13

in the 17th century are you know just
primarily are a black carbon pigment

27:19

in some kind of a binder.

27:20

So I think — I’ve been talking
with a couple of people I know

27:24

who can train you know x-ray
florescence on materials like this

27:32

and determine what perhaps other
trace elements might be available

27:36

and might be present in those inks.

27:38

And I don’t know the answer to that
question but I think that’s an avenue

27:41

that some people are looking into to find what
other trace elements along with the carbon

27:45

which doesn’t show up in that type
of imaging are present in those inks.

27:49

So a very good question and I wish
I could give you a better answer

27:52

and perhaps our conservator knows
more about that, I don’t know.

27:57

[ Inaudible ]

28:06

> Dr. Stephanie Dickey: There’s always room
for new discoveries which is a great thing.

28:09

Well thank you all for being here.

28:12

I need to acknowledge once more the
generosity of Bader Philanthropies

28:17

and the Museum’s Assistance Program of Canadian
Heritage both of which contributed funding

28:22

to make this event and our exhibition possible.

28:25

The exhibition is here until
December 1st after which it goes

28:28

on to Edmonton, Regina and Hamilton.

28:32

The first travelling show from the
Bader collection that has been organized

28:35

in quite some time so that’s very exciting.

28:38

And again we thank very much our lenders who
have contributed to the selection of works

28:42

that will be here on view and then also
be shared with people elsewhere in Canada.

28:48

And a very warm thank you
to our speakers for today.

28:52

[ Applause ]

No results found