年轻的弓箭手

For most of its life this picture passed as a Rembrandt. The Marquess of Hertford bought it as one in 1848, reassured by a signature on the canvas. But when it was cleaned in 1913 that signature proved to be a later forgery, and the true painter turned out to be Govert Flinck, who had studied under Rembrandt around 1631 and learned to imitate him so closely that his own work was mistaken for the master's for generations. It shows a young Black boy costumed as an archer, bow in hand, lit warmly against a dark ground. Who he was, a servant, a model, a soldier, nobody knows. A drawing of the same face survives, and it helped confirm Flinck's hand when the picture was reattributed in 1928.