Rethinking Art History with Rembrandt Specialist Ernst van de Wetering

“A monument of art history" is what Old Masters consultant Étienne Bréton calls Ernst van de Wetering, who spent nearly half a century studying Rembrandt ’s work. Gunnar Heydenreich, who, with his team in Cologne, focused the same attention on Cranach , calls Wetering’s book The Painter at Work  his "bedside Bible". In 1968 Wetering joined the brand new Rembrandt Research Project (RRP), thinking it would last a few years. It turned out to be a lifetime. The art historian radically changed the methodology after taking over in 1993. He retired only…