FEW SIXTEENTH-CENTURY Netherlandish diptychs have survived complete and intact. The challenge of attempting to reunite separated paintings was recently encountered in the case of two panels painted by Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen in about 1530, a portrait of Cardinal Erard de la Marck (Fig.1) in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and the Holy family (Fig.2) in the collection of the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage, Rijswijk, on long-term loan to the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem. Cardinal Erard de la Marck (1472–1538), prince-bishop of Liège, is shown half-length and facing to the right, wearing a red hat (biretta) and a dark red garment (tabard) with a fur collar. Behind him two angels hold up a green curtain. In the Holy family, the Virgin Mary is shown seated and facing to the left. She holds two carnations in her left hand and with her right arm supports the muscular, standing Christ Child draped in a green cloth. In the upper right, Joseph’s brooding face and upper body are visible behind a rock or wall. In the top left-hand corner, God, surrounded by small music-making angels, is shown in the heavens. There is a seemingly incongruous triangle of green fabric on the left side of the composition. When the two paintings are placed side-by-side, the function of the green fabric becomes clear; it appears to be related to the green curtain in the background of the Cardinal’s portrait. Other aspects of the two compositions suggest a connection: the figures of the Cardinal and the Virgin are almost the same size, they lean slightly towards one another, and the light in the sky illuminates them both from a central point. The angels in the portrait face to the right; the hand gesture of one angel is echoed by Christ’s gesture in the Holy family.

IN HIS DISCUSSION in this Magazine of the Rembrandt Year in 2006, Christopher Brown devoted considerable attention to what he described as the ‘almost certainly over-lively’ state of Rembrandt studies. He was also concerned that the changes within the Rembrandt Research Project (RRP) – the project which has, in Brown’s words, ‘to a significant degree [. . .] set the parameters of discussion’ – may have contributed to this situation, either directly or indirectly. He continued: ‘I was among those who believed that the “old” RRP [active 1968–93] had been unduly restrictive [with regard to the definition of the boundaries of Rembrandt’s autograph œuvre] [. . .] but this rigour appears to have given way to an excessive inclusiveness’.

ON THE MORNING of Tuesday 1st June 1909, Henry Clay Frick had every reason to believe that he owned Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan, the portrait by Hans Holbein which had been on view at the National Gallery, London, since 1880 (Fig.21). Through his friend and agent Charles Carstairs, head of Knoedler & Company’s London branch, Frick had arranged earlier that spring to purchase the picture from the 15th Duke of Norfolk for £72,000 (approximately $330,000). By the beginning of May, only one obstacle delayed Frick’s acquisition: an option granted to the National Gallery to retain the painting if it could muster the cash. Representing the Duke, Colnaghi & Company sent a letter on 9th May to Charles Holroyd, then director of the Gallery, informing him that the trustees had until 1st June to meet the asking price.