The Physics of Rembrandt...

Mock-up of Rembrandt's "An old man in military costume" with a portrait painted underneath the final work. Photo: Andrea Sartorius, © J. Paul Getty Trust (free for editorial use if credit is given)

A sophisticated X-ray technology is paving the way to uncover the secrets of a 380-year-old Rembrandt masterpiece. Underneath the Old Man in Military Costume, painted by the Dutch artist in the years 1630-31, previous investigations spotted another portrait which was only faintly distinguishable with all applied technologies. For years, art historians puzzled over the question of who is depicted on the repainted picture. 

Now, an international team of scientists has used a detailed mock-up to test different methods of looking beneath the original painting at DESYs X-ray source DORIS and at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in the United States, as well as with a mobile X-ray scanner. The results are published as the cover story of the "Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry" (JAAS) of the British Royal Society of Chemistry.

"Our experiments demonstrate a possibility of how to reveal much of the hidden picture," said first author Matthias Alfeld from the University of Antwerp (Belgium). "Compared to other techniques, the X-ray investigation we tested is currently the best method to look underneath the original painting."

Brookhaven National Labs: Mysterious Rembrandt