CODART, Dutch and Flemish art in museums worldwide

One of the most intriguing works in the Gösta Serlachius Fine Arts Foundation’s collection was long believed to be by Jan Lievens. Today, however, it is attributed to the elusive Master I.S. — an anonymous painter whose remarkable oeuvre of circa 25-30 paintings continues to puzzle art historians. This reattribution illustrates the broader need for systematic research into the Serlachius collection of European Old Masters. The Gösta Serlachius Fine Arts Foundation, based in the Finnish town of Mänttä, oversees a collection of some 11,000 works of art. Around one hundred are classified as historic European, with a strong focus on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish paintings. Little research has hitherto been conducted on this corpus, leaving ample room for further study and new insights.

In 1937, the Finnish industrialist and art patron Gösta Serlachius (1876-1942) purchased the Old Man with a Fur Hat (fig. 1) in London. His advisor in the transaction was the art dealer Louis Richter, one of the many experts consulted by Serlachius in his art acquisitions. The attribution to Jan Lievens was not entirely far-fetched, if we compare the piece with vaguely similar works by Lievens, notably his early painting Old Man (fig. 2) held in the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Despite unmistakable divergences in the style and technique of the two paintings, the misattribution is understandable given how little was then known about Master I.S. (also known as Monogrammist I.S.). It is also conceivable that the seller deliberately invoked Lievens’s name to increase the painting’s commercial appeal.

Old Man with a Fur Hat remained misattributed to Lievens for many decades despite Professor Werner Sumowski having posited Master I.S. as its true author in his magnum opus Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler in the 1980s. Very little has been written about the oeuvre of the enigmatic Master I.S., which perhaps explains why the misattribution has been overlooked by previous art historians. In the past two decades, however, new light has been shed on the subject by writers such as David de Witt, Senior Curator at the Rembrandt House Museum, who discussed Master I.S. in a publication about Dutch and Flemish paintings in the Canadian Bader Collection in 2008. The work of Master I.S has also been researched for many years by Professors Volker Manuth and Marieke de Winkel, whose research on the master’s work had not been published prior to the present project.

From Leiden to Mänttä and Back Again

Now a recent research project on the unknown Dutch master is culminating in an exhibition and accompanying publication. The project had its inception at a seminar hosted by Serlachius in April 2022, where David de Witt, as keynote speaker, raised the subject of the formerly misattributed Serlachius painting and Professor Manuth’s ongoing research on Master I.S. An exhibition and research project devoted to the work of Master I.S. seemed an ideal opportunity for the Gösta Serlachius Fine Arts Foundation to advance its goal of increasing the research and visibility of its collection of old European art.

Given the scope and ambition of the exhibition, an international collaboration was an obvious choice. Such a project benefits from the combined expertise, resources, and networks of multiple institutions. By working together, partnered museums can ensure broader visibility, share knowledge, and create a more impactful exhibition.

From the outset, Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden emerged as a natural partner for the project. Not only does the museum have a longstanding tradition of research-driven exhibitions, but Leiden itself also is the most fitting historical context for Master I.S. Detailed analysis of paintings by the master leaves little doubt that the artist lived and possibly studied in Leiden around the 1620s and early 1630s. The paintings bear a recognizable stylistic resemblance to the early work of Rembrandt and Jan Lievens, but also to other Leiden-based artists such as Gerrit Dou and David Bailly.

The partnership between Museum De Lakenhal and Serlachius therefore became an essential foundation for the project. Museum De Lakenhal offers a unique context for exploring Master I.S.’s connection to Leiden’s artistic heritage, while Serlachius, with its rare possession of one of the artist’s paintings, adds an important international perspective, linking the oeuvre to a broader European context.

Chasing Ghosts

A research project delving into centuries-old art always poses challenges, even when the artist’s identity is known. But when all we know about the artist are his or her initials and a handful of paintings attributed to a monogram, the fact-finding process begins to resemble a ghost hunt. That said, knowing so little about the artist is inherently fascinating—when the master’s identity is a mystery, we are naturally compelled to examine his or her work all the more closely.

Perhaps the most intriguing puzzle confronting the art historian is Master I.S.’s rendering of details such as facial features, attire and interiors, which seem at odds with the conventional content of seventeenth-century Dutch art (fig. 3). The physiognomy, clothing and objects seem instead to suggest Eastern and/or Northern European influences and the cultural context of the Baltic Sea. People and objects were of course known to cross geographical borders in the seventeenth century—not least from countries with extensive trade connections like the Netherlands—but we cannot rule out the possibility that Master I.S. may have traveled in Eastern Europe or indeed have even hailed from some country other than the Netherlands.

The many unanswered questions surrounding the figure of Master I.S. serve only to generate further mystery around the artist’s elusive persona. Lured by a multitude of potential interpretations, the scholar faces a great temptation to fill in biographical gaps with speculative narrative – which is further strengthened by the various contradictory elements found in the master’s paintings. The style and technique are strongly suggestive of the Netherlands, particularly Leiden, but the interiors, physiognomy and accessories seem to point in a wholly different geographical direction (fig. 4). Another confusing feature is the inconsistent execution of the master’s early paintings, in which certain parts are rendered with astonishing skill and precision, while others are far from brilliant in technique. Thought-provoking questions are also raised by paintings such as Young Scholar Half-Naked (fig. 5), which offers a highly unconventional interpretation of the Leiden school’s tradition of self-portraiture and vanitas painting.

Despite occasional awkwardness in the master’s early paintings, the most remarkable thing about the oeuvre of Master I.S. is its astonishing technical virtuosity (fig. 6). It is difficult to fathom how paintings of such superb quality have ended up consigned to the margins of art history. The only apparent reason for this historical oversight is the tendency for art historical narrative to magnify the personality cult formed around the life and work of certain famed artists. When an artist’s identity and biography are unknown, their artistic accomplishments tend to receive less attention, however brilliant they may be.

One of the key aims of this research and exhibition project was to collate the existing research on the artist’s work, and also to open up completely new perspectives on the oeuvre of Master I.S. This project marks the first occasion that one of the master’s paintings, Old Man with a Fur Hat from Mänttä, has undergone detailed technical and pigment analysis using X-ray, UV and IR technology. The analysis yielded little new information, but confirmed that the pigments used by the artist were typical of the seventeenth century and that there are few traces of underdrawings. The results nevertheless provide useful baseline data that can be supplemented with comparative material when paintings from other collections undergo similar technical analysis in the future. The next stages of research should further focus on the provenance of Master I.S.’s paintings, which unfortunately could not be thoroughly studied within the framework of this exhibition project.

We hope that this first monographic scholarly study will open up questions about workshop context, audience, and authorship. Luckily, a monograph of Master I.S., including a catalogue raisonné, is currently in preparation by Volker Manuth, and so it is important to state that the present project’s purpose was not to define the complete oeuvre of the artist but rather to explore contextual questions and to present some of the most important works to the wider public.

Unique projects such as this come along rarely in an art historian’s lifetime. We would like to express our warmest thanks to everyone who offered their generous support, especially David de Witt, Volker Manuth and Marieke de Winkel. We are also indebted to the institutions and private collectors who made this study and exhibition possible through the loan of paintings. Thanks to CODART, we were able to issue a call for missing paintings via their website and introduce our research and exhibition project at the CODART 25 Speaker’s Corner in Stockholm. As a result, we located previously missing works and even uncovered new ones we didn’t know existed. We therefore wish to express our gratitude towards CODART and all its members. On behalf of the entire research team, we hope that the publication Master I.S. – Enigmatic Contemporary of Rembrandt and the exhibitions at Serlachius and Museum De Lakenhal will spread new awareness of this unknown artist, inspiring further research, exhibitions and publication projects.

Janneke van Asperen is Curator of Old Masters at Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden. She has been a member of CODART since 2020. Tomi Moisio is Curator at Serlachius Museum Gösta in Mänttä, Finland. He has been a member of CODART since 2023.

This text is based on Tomi Moisio’s article ‘Master I.S. – From Misattribution to Groundbreaking Exhibition’, in: Master I.S. – Enigmatic Contemporary of Rembrandt, exh. cat. Serlachius Museums, Mänttä, and Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden, 2025-2026 (Parvs Publishing).