L'uomo con l'elmo d'oro

For generations this glinting portrait was one of the most famous Rembrandts in Berlin, an old soldier under a heavy embossed golden helmet caught in a shaft of light. In the 1980s a commission of experts examined it closely and concluded the touch was not quite his. Since 1986 it has been catalogued not as Rembrandt but as the work of someone in his circle, most likely a pupil around 1650. As the expert who announced it was careful to say, it is not a fake and remains a masterful painting. It is a reminder that a great picture can outlive the certainty about who made it.