Offbeat | Museum sleuths show painting is a Rembrandt

Rembrandt’s “Saul and David” after restoration

After a CSI – style investigation, the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague has declared that one of its star paintings really is by Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn.
Researchers used advanced X-ray techniques to peer through several coats of paint that had been applied during previous restorations of “Saul and David” and establish that the original pigments were the same as those Rembrandt used in the 17th century.
A former director of the museum in The Hague bought the painting more than a century ago, but in the late 1960s doubt was cast on who actually painted the Biblical scene.
Now newly re-attributed to Rembrandt, the painstakingly restored canvas is the centerpiece of an exhibition opening tomorrow that shows how the museum unraveled the mystery of who painted “Saul and David.” AP