Opinion Old masters,new celebrity

Only 40-odd paintings by this 16th-century Flemish Renaissance master survive. This one,from around 1565,came from a private seller,whose ancient family,unaware and clearly unconcerned,had kept it for aeons in the proverbial dark corridor,in Córdoba,where it accumulated dirt. Then the Prado conservators took a look. What seemed to be the artist’s signature turned up beneath layers of grime and varnish.

What is it about the discovery of a new work by a textbook name? Headlines over the years have trumpeted this Bruegel,a possible Velázquez unearthed from a university museum basement in Connecticut,a supposed Michelangelo in the foyer of some New York town house. The inevitable fuss that followed these announcements can be only partly chalked up to the popular fantasy of finding treasure in the attic,or to the obvious prospect of seeing more great art. Truth be told,new discoveries aren’t always great. The art may have been in plain sight all along,like that Michelangelo statue,which languished in the French Embassy’s cultural services office on Fifth Avenue for most of the last century before its (now much doubted) attribution. Or it may have been some murky painting already hanging in a museum,with a label saying it was the handiwork of an unknown “school of” someone or someplace,or by some obscure artist whose name didn’t make us pause.

Then the news breaks about its ostensible author,and we slap our heads,yet again,for relying on labels rather than on our eyes,a lesson finally learned,we tell ourselves before admiring the discovery because of its fancier label,as if anything had really changed.

Connoisseurship,notwithstanding the chemicals and gizmos modern science has concocted to aid in its detective work,remains an art. That’s the beauty part of it,and what also keeps alive the business of looking,the flip side of this business being how money and fame can sometimes make dreamers or opportunists out of even the most scrupulous experts and institutions.

In the case of the Bruegel,the signature was not the only argument for saying he did the picture. As with a few other works Bruegel painted,‘The Wine of St. Martin’s Day’ is done in tempera on fine linen,the pigment mixed not with egg or oil but glue. What results is a fragile matte surface from which paint gradually falls away. Even with the later varnish removed,a gauzy scrim seems to cloud the remaining image. Glue from a liner long ago added to the back of the canvas has also caused parts of the picture to pucker and bulge.

So the painting wasn’t easy to decipher,but,on close inspection,not withstanding the damage,it still looked exceptionally beautiful,almost more so for being fragile and ghostly. In the clear light of the conservation studio,you can admire the delicacy of faces and hands and feet,alive and varied,making a jigsaw of humane detail,Bruegel’s trademark: the cripple kneeling at St. Martin’s feet; the mother gulping wine with a baby still clasped to her breast; and the fallen drunk,limbs bent and splayed like a ragamuffin,face in the dirt.

Privately,dealers are always boasting about spectacular finds: an unknown El Greco in a country home here,a long-lost Rubens in a private collection there. To ask the original question another way: Why do we want these works to turn out to be by Velázquez and Michelangelo? After all,the art is the same either way.

Partly,of course,there’s the simple pleasure of a good yarn well told,and Michelangelo generally provides a better payoff to a whodunit than Baccio Bandinelli. There’s big money involved too. When that Bruegel signature materialised,the Spanish Ministry of Culture invoked national patrimony law,which,as Finaldi acknowledged,amounts to a kind of state-sanctioned blackmail,albeit in service to the public. The law meant the museum could prevent export and name its price. What might have gone for $100 million or more on the open market (who knows?),went for $9 million,which the government,near financial collapse,will take its time to pay.

The conservator in charge of the painting’s restoration,Elisa Mora,pantomimed the other morning how she still planned to remove the picture’s old lining and glue,a tricky process akin to peeling skin,she said,except,unlike skin,torn canvas doesn’t repair itself. And then the public will finally get its newest old master. In the end we want another celebrity attribution like this one because we want to get things straight. History tries to make sense out of chaos,toward which the world inevitably inclines. Art historians create hierarchies,categories and movements; they attribute causes and effects to conjure an appearance of logic.

Attributing a picture to a household deity like Bruegel or Michelangelo affirms our sense of control,our ability to get a grip on our affairs,at least for the moment. We take comfort in mooring some grimy,forgotten canvas,another example of life’s flotsam and,implicitly,of our own fate,to one of the pillars of art history. After centuries in the wilderness,home. It’s the story of Odysseus in Ithaca,among countless other myths. There is always hope,in other words,the chance of redemption no matter how belated,a slender thread to lead us out of oblivion,meaning it is not merely order we seek. It is also the prospect of endlessly reordering the world,so that nothing is ever quite settled,so that everything remains possible,in life and in posterity,as in art. Today a neglected picture,a bedraggled Cinderella,like a surrogate self,hides in the attic. Tomorrow it’s at the Prado.And ultimately,that Bruegel is us. Michael Kimmelman