Fenner in the news - Cracking a Rembrandt mystery
The Ashmolean museum in Oxford recently announced that a portrait by Rembrandt, long thought to be a fake created after his death, was indeed an authentic work by the Dutch master. The announcement came after a study of the portrait’s wood panel.
Dendrochronologist – a scientist that dates tree growth rings and thereby identifies the age of various objects and phenomena – Peter Klein found upon examining the panel that it was oak felled in the Baltic region about 1618–28. Klein said the piece of wood came from the same tree as a panel used by Rembrandt for another work.
But what was the basis for these findings?
Cosmos Magazine spoke to the Fenner School's resident dendrochronologist, Dr Matthew Brookhouse, about what would have been involved!