Truth in labeling. (evaluating authentic versus fake Rembrandt paintings)(includes related article on technology used to date and authenticate paintings)

Juxtaposing paintings attributed to Rembrandt with those now rejected from his oeuvre, a current Metropolitan Museum exhibition reveals the confused state of Rembrandt connoisseurship. The author proposes radical revisions in the attribution process and calls for a new honesty in the claims that museums make about the works they own.

In March 1976, the Dutch-American art historian Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann was consulted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art concerning a painting that had been donated to the museum by Charles S. Payson as a Rembrandt the year before. The Met put…