A PAINTING which has sat in the stores of an Oxford museum for more than 50 years has now been confirmed as the work of one of the most famous artists of all time.

The tiny picture, called Head of a Bearded Man, was bequeathed to the Ashmolean in in 1951.

Now museum bosses have announced that 'it can be confirmed as having been painted in Rembrandt's workshop, circa 1630'.

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The confirmation doesn't mean the entire thing was painted by the Dutch master himself, but means that experts are now confident the work was produced in the studio which he ran, like many of the most famous artists throughout history, with a team of painters.

It means that he was involved in its creation and may have done some of the brushwork with his own hand.

What's more, the Ashmolean says the portrait – a study of an old man with a downcast gaze – is typical of Rembrandt's work at that period.

Oxford Mail:

It is convenient timing for the museum, which is currently holding an exhibition of Rembrandt's work.

Now it will go on display in the show from Wednesday this week.

Curator An Van Camp said she took the Young Rembrandt exhibition as 'an opportunity to re-examine the painting'.

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She commented: "As a curator it is incredibly exciting to find out that a previously unidentified painting can be placed in the workshop of one of the most famous artists of all times.

"I am delighted to have the chance to show the panel in our exhibition where it can be seen alongside other works painted in Rembrandt’s workshop at the same time."

The painting was bequeathed to the museum by an un-named British art collector and dealer and entered the collection as 'an early Rembrandt'.

A printed label stuck to the back of the painting has been cut out from the catalogue of a Paris auction which took place on February 25, 1777.

Oxford Mail:

The text reads: "A Head of an Old Man, painted by Rembrandt. Very (realistic/ true to nature?) colour; height, six pouces by five wide."

However it was rejected in 1982 by the leading authorities on Rembrandt’s work, ‘the Rembrandt Research Project’, who believed it to be the best of a number of copies of a lost original.

Oxford Mail:

An Van Camp and conservators brought the picture out of the stores to analyse it with the help of Professor Peter Klein, an internationally renowned dendrochronologist – an expert in dating wooden objects by looking at tree growth rings.

He has concluded that the wood panel on which it is painted comes from the same tree used for Rembrandt’s Andromeda Chained to the Rocks and Jan Lievens’s Portrait of Rembrandt’s Mother, both painted when the artists were working in Leiden.

Find out more about visiting at ashmolean.org