Information from the museum, 17 September 2014
The National Gallery is mounting a three-day scholarly conference on Rembrandt’s technical practice for painting, spanning the whole of Rembrandt’s career, to coincide with the exhibition ‘Rembrandt: The Late Works’ (15 Oct 2014 – 18 Jan 2015). The exhibition is co-organised with the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and will transfer there early in 2015.
Apart from the interest engendered by the exhibition, it is particularly timely to consider the results of technical research on Rembrandt, since many researchers around the world, especially in Europe, the UK and the United States, have turned fresh eyes and, recently, newer technologies to Rembrandt studies. No widely publicised open conference for scholars has dealt with this fast-moving subject comprehensively in recent years. At the same time a number of important conservation treatments of paintings by Rembrandt have been carried out in collections around the world in the last five years, and the revelations brought about by cleaning of these paintings will be of great interest to the Rembrandt scholarly and curatorial community.
The availability of the Rembrandt exhibition to conference delegates will provide an additional context to formal presentations in the National Gallery Lecture Theatre, and there will be a pre-arranged morning private view for registered delegates.
Confirmed contributors to the programme include speakers from: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; The Mauritshuis, The Hague; Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague; Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen; The National Gallery, London; Musée du Louvre, Paris; C2RMF, Paris; The Royal Collection, UK; KIK-IRPA, Brussels; The Metropolitan Museum, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington; The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Yale University, New Haven; University of Glasgow, UK; The University of Antwerp, Belgium and the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.
There will be a keynote lecture by Professor Ernst van de Wetering. A panel discussion led by David Bomford (Director of Conservation, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston) will close the Conference.
The language of the conference is English.
Conference fee: £285 per person
Registration
Conference registration is now open. Further information, including a draft conference programme and details on how to register and purchase tickets, is available at: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/rembrandt-now