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THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The painting was sliced down the middle in the 19th century, probably to be sold as two Rembrandt portraits. At some point in the next 40 years, it was sutured back together with pieces of an entirely different canvas, and layered with paint to cover up its scars.
荷兰海牙——19世纪的时候，有人将这幅画从中间一分为二，其目的可能是把它当成两幅独立的肖像画出售。后来的40年时间里，又有人利用若干块完全不同的画布把分开的两部分严丝合缝地拼了起来，还涂上了颜料，用以遮盖疤痕。
In 1898, the director of the Mauritshuis Royal Picture Gallery here proudly displayed it in the museum as “Saul and David,” one of Rembrandt's most important biblical works. Then, in 1969, a noted Rembrandt authority discredited the painting, and for years it hung next to a label that read “Rembrandt and/or Studio,” a serious demotion.
1898年，海牙莫瑞泰斯皇家美术馆(Mauritshuis Royal Picture Gallery)馆长在馆内骄傲地展示了这幅名为《扫罗与大卫》(Saul and David)的画作，它是伦勃朗(Rembrandt)以圣经故事为题材的作品中极为重要的一件。到了1969年，此画遭到一位伦勃朗研究权威的质疑，之后的很多年里，在它旁边的标签上一直能看到“伦勃朗和/或仿作”(Rembrandt and/or Studio)几个字，这意味它身价大跌。
Now, after eight years of examination and restoration by the museum's own conservators — with support from researchers from various outside institutions, like the Delft University of Technology, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Netherlands Institute for Art History and Cornell University — the Mauritshuis has reclaimed the painting as an authentic Rembrandt, saying it was painted in two stages by the master's own hand. It is one of more than 300 surviving Rembrandt paintings.
现在，莫瑞泰斯皇家美术馆重新将这幅画认定为伦勃朗的真迹，说它是大师亲手绘制的，历经两个阶段。此前，该馆的文物保存专家在代尔夫特理工大学(Delft University of Technology) 、华盛顿国家画廊(National Gallery of Art) 、荷兰艺术史研究所(Netherlands Institute for Art History)、康奈尔大学(Cornell University)等外部机构的研究人员帮助下，用八年时间对它进行了查验和修复。它也由此进入了300多幅伦勃朗存世真迹的行列。
The museum revealed its findings on Tuesday, two days before it opens an exhibition, “Rembrandt? The Case of Saul and David.” The show is devoted entirely to this single work, which depicts the young hero David playing a harp for an elderly King Saul, who is moved by the music.
周二，莫瑞泰斯皇家美术馆在该馆名为“伦勃朗？以《扫罗与大卫》为例”(Rembrandt? The Case of Saul and David)的展览开幕两天前公布了自己的研究结果。《扫罗与大卫》是这场展览的绝对焦点，它描绘的是少年英雄大卫为年长的扫罗王演奏竖琴、琴声让后者深受打动的场景。
“It's a very special occasion,” said Ernst van de Wetering, a Dutch art historian, the world's leading authority on Rembrandt and one of eight members of the museum's independent advisory committee. “They must feel lucky. They have another addition to their fantastic collection of Rembrandt.”
“这是一个十分特别的场合，”荷兰的艺术史学家恩斯特·范·德·维特林(Ernst van de Wetering)说，“他们一定觉得自己很幸运，他们令人赞叹的伦勃朗收藏又多了一幅作品。”维特林是伦勃朗研究领域的世界级著名权威，同时也是莫瑞泰斯皇家美术馆独立专家咨询委员会的八名成员之一。
Van de Wetering, speaking in a telephone interview, added that the work was “a rare history painting from Rembrandt's middle period.”
维特林接受电话采访时还表示，《扫罗与大卫》是一幅“罕见的出自伦勃朗艺术生涯中期的历史画”。
Other Rembrandt scholars who were not on the panel responded largely with approbation.
其他一些不在上述委员会里的伦勃朗研究者基本表示赞同。
“It fits the style of Rembrandt and also his kind of handling,” said Christopher White, a London art historian who specializes in Dutch art.
“它符合伦勃朗的风格，处理手法也吻合，”研究荷兰艺术品的伦敦艺术历史学家克里斯托弗·怀特(Christopher White)说。
Attribution problems for the painting began when the art historian Horst Gerson questioned its authorship. He suggested that it was the work of one of the master's pupils because “the painterly execution is superficial and inconsistent” and because he did not “recognize Rembrandt's touch in it.”
这幅作品的真伪问题，最先是由艺术史家霍斯特·格尔森(Horst Gerson)提出的。他认为，这是伦勃朗的一名学生的作品，因为它‘画得没有深度，缺乏一致性”，而且他没有“从中看出伦勃朗的特点”。
The Mauritshuis accepted Gerson's decision, and changed the wall label.
莫瑞泰斯接受了格尔森的结论，更换了墙上的标签。
Then, in 2007, the museum began its own investigation.
2007年，该美术馆开始自行展开调查。
Emilie Gordenker, the director of the Mauritshuis, said that new scientific data gleaned from paint sample analysis and a new X-ray technique allowed restorers to look beneath the overpainted surface and gain fresh perspective on aspects of the painting that had been obscured by damage and previous restorations.
莫瑞泰斯的馆长艾米丽·戈登科(Emilie Gordenker)说，借助颜料样品分析和一种新的X射线技术，他们获得了新的科学数据，这使修复者可以看到表面下被修改前的状况，对于破损和之前的修复工作所掩盖的部分，他们获得了新的视角。
Once researchers could differentiate original pigments from those that were added later, the museum could more easily start to conceptualize the original work. The final assessment of attribution was made through the judgments of curators, restorers and members of the international advisory board. Gordenker made the final call.
研究人员一旦能够分辨出原来的颜料和后来添加的那些，美术馆对最初的作品形成概念就会变得更容易。真伪的最终评估由策展人、修复者和国际咨询委员会的成员进行。戈登科负责最后定论。
Some researchers were tentative about weighing in before they had read all of the new data.
对于在没有看所有新数据的情况下参加辩论，一些研究人员感到踌躇。
“This painting is in a very bad state, and that makes it harder to analyze,” said Stephanie Dickey, a professor at Queen's University in Canada and the author of three scholarly books about Rembrandt. “No matter how much scientific research you do, there is always a subjective element.”
“这幅画处于非常糟糕的状态，这使得它很难被分析，”加拿大皇后大学(Queen's University)教授斯蒂芬妮·迪基(Stephanie Dickey)说，她曾写过三本关于伦勃朗的学术著作。“不管你做多少科学研究，主观因素总是避免不了的。”
Gary Schwartz, an American Rembrandt scholar and founder of Codart, an online resource for Dutch and Flemish paintings, said in an email: “The outcome of the new research does not surprise me. What is new is not the attribution itself but the minute attention to all the physical details of this complex canvas.”
来自美国的伦勃朗学者加里·施瓦茨(Gary Schwartz)是荷兰和佛兰芒绘画资源网站Codart的创始人，他在一封电邮中表示：“这项新研究的结果并不让我感到吃惊。新意不是画作的归属，而是投射到这幅复杂油画的全部物理细节上的无微不至的注意力。“
Gordenker described the new exhibition as a “`CSI'-style forensic investigation” into the life, injury and revitalization of this work, and said she hoped that it would open up the matter to broader discussion. It is quite possible that still other experts, when they see the research for themselves, might draw different conclusions, she added.
戈登科说，这个新展览是对这幅作品的生命、伤痕和恢复状况进行的“《犯罪现场调查》(CSI)式的法医调查”，并说她希望这能引发更加广泛的讨论。其他专家有可能在亲眼看到研究过程后，得出不同的结论，她说。
“We really don't want the `it is or it isn't?' question to dominate,” Gordenker said. “We take a point of view on it, but we're open to discoveries and new revelations.”
“我们真的不希望‘是真还是假？’这个问题主导了一切，”戈登科说。“对于这个问题，我们有自己的看法，但是也对各种发现和新的启示持开放态度。”
