Rubens' portrait of Clara Serena (ctd.)

May 4 2018

Picture: Rubenshuis

I've recorded a short podcast on Rubens' portrait of Clara Serena for the Financial Times, here if you're interested. We discussed the Met's response to the reattribution of the picture, which I've said before wasn't exactly grown up. I think it's interesting to see how politics and egos can still colour the acceptance of attributions from the world's leading museums, to whom the public rightly look to for an impartial and authoritative view. Similar to the Met's response to the reattribution of the Clara Serena was the Louvre's refusal to comment on the news that a painting by Hals they tried to buy was later judged to be a fake. There's really no shame in being wrong, and making what at the time were understandable mistakes. As one of my heroes, Sir Nicholas Penny, says; 'the picture comes first'. Everything else should be irrelevant.

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