What goes into the certain identification of a lost painting?
A long-lost monumental painting by Dutch master Paulus Potter has been rediscovered - thanks to a 1664 newspaper announcement!
A collaborative research project between the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, and the Mauritshuis, The Hague has used conservation, art-historical and scientific analysis to confirm the status of a painting in the Dublin collection as a fragment from an ambitious composition by Paulus Potter, the pre-eminent Dutch animal painter of the first half of the seventeenth century.
Research has now linked Head of a White Bull, a fragment in the National Gallery of Ireland, to this forgotten work. Technical analysis has uncovered Europa herself, hidden beneath layers of overpainting. Once a grand mythological scene, the painting was cut down and altered over time, obscuring Potter’s rare foray into mythology.
This discovery not only expands his known oeuvre but also challenges the long-held belief that his genius was confined to animal depictions.
Muirne Lydon
