I've been searching for a way to properly articulate this-- why does it matter, really, who painted it? I mean I understand that monetary value has a lot to do with a painting (and painter's) pedigree. But how can aesthetically judging a painting be influenced by who painted it? Shouldn't we judge an individual piece of artwork based on its own merits, not the reputation of who we think created it?

I mean, if I've got this right, if it's a Reubens, it's priceless, but if it's by someone else, it's worthless. That's not art. That's autographs.

If the National Gallery is exhibiting a painting that is not what it purports it to be, then of what value is any other work of art shown there. Technical merit alone is not sufficient. If a highly skilled forger copies a Rembrandt, one could admire the skill required to make the copy, but would it be legitimate to say they are equal, as if the artist is not important at all? There is value in the originality of the creator. If a writer copies the style of a revered author, does that make the two equal? If the National Gallery believes this painting to be a good and masterly work of art, that is well and good; proper attribution being a minimum requirement one would think. If they consider it inferior work, slapping a respected artists label on it does no one justice. Owning up to a 5 million dollar mistake might be difficult, but how much is ones reputation worth?

I'd be interested in hearing a balanced discussion of this image and attribution issues. Unfortunately this article is not it. The author never presents any evidence for the painting's authenticity, speaks of art historians and curators in a sneering tone as "experts" (quotation marks from the article) and seems hellbent on presenting this as an example of institutional fraud and negligence. Mistakes in attribution do happen, and it does sound like the provenance for this work could be questionable. The differences between the work and contemporary copies also seem worthy of note.

Nevertheless, I'm not buying the argument on the basis of this article. I also find it odd that there seem to be no actual Rubens scholars (and there are a lot of them out there) arguing against this work - at least as the article presents it, the painting's detractors are contemporary artists (not that contemporary artists can't have valid insights into past works) and a painter who has published on Egyptian/Roman art. It's also not news that dendochronology is not a foolproof method for determining authenticity. And for the record, I know a number of artists who would take issue with the statement that Rubens is the "painter's painter par excellence" - they tend to prefer Rembrandt as a rule.