In 1998 the important but neglected altar-piece by Albert Cornelis depicting the Coronation of the Virgin surrounded by the nine choirs of angels (Fig. 1) was brought to the attention of a wider public when it was shown in the exhibition Brugge en de Renaissance. Van Memling tot Pourbus in the Memling Museum, Bruges.' In his review of the show, Lorne Campbell drew attention to the painting and expressed some regret that the infra-red reflectograms of it, mentioned in the catalogue entry, were not illustrated.2 The purpose of the present article is to show how the results of infra-red examination may be used to shed light on the division of labour in this altar-piece, which is well known from earlier published documentation to have been a collaborative effort.

That Rubens was in the habit of retouching drawings and paintings by others, often by masters from previous generations, is now well known. Such creative manipulation was in keeping with the established renaissance humanist principle of aemulatio, to which he subscribed, and the practice may also be seen as forming part of his practical working exercises and methods. This consideration may indeed have been the most important purpose of Rubens's retouching - one might even say 'restoration' - of a number of copies after compositions from the Bruegel circle, as I hope to make clear in the following paragraphs.

For many years the titles of four important Turner watercolours have been confused. As a result, the largest and possibly most significant of them (Fig.33) has been incorrectly dated and thus separated art-historically from other comparable works made around the time of its creation, thus lessening our understanding of Turner's achievement during the mid- 1810s. Setting the drawings within the broader context of their early public display allows their correct identities to be established.