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Prof. Sir Ernst Gombrich and Dr J. Montagu championed and advised on the presentation of my article in The Burlington Feb.1977

Prof. Sir Lawrence Gowing in a letter after I had given my Rembrandt talk at The Slade, wrote: “your division between objective and imaginative is more satisfactory and comprehensible than anything before” He repeated this judgement in the Times Literary Supplement (17/02/78)

Prof. Bryan Coles in a review in Icon No.8 The Imperial College Magazine wrote of my maquettes: “many of which compel assent” and with foresight “It would be a pity for scholarship not to profit from his imaginative researches.”

Max Wyks-Joyce review in the NY Herald Tribune (27/01/76) wrote “certainly the exhibition is a seminal one which should not be lightly dismissed”

Nigel Hawkes in The Observer (23/11/75) headed his long article The Rembrandt Revelation

Benedict Nicolson, editor of The Burlington wrote: “I find the evidence you have accumulated of the greatest possible interest, and so I am sure will Rembrandt scholars, who must now get down to revising the corpus of drawings”

Dr. M. Kauffman, head of the Dept. of Prints and Drawings at the Victoria and Albert Museum wrote: “you certainly make a pretty convincing case for the Rembrandts”

Anthony Bailey in The New Yorker’s review of recent Rembrandt scholarship gave me a thumbs up, as well as devoting some pages to my work in his book Rembrandt’s House pp 99-100 & on 214 – 215 he quotes me at length and writes “The scholars will assuredly tussle with Mr. Konstam. But he represents the sort of fresh thinking Rembrandt attracts...”

The scholars do not tussle they undermine in publications where there is no means of reply.

Hans Brill in his introduction to my second exhibition at Imperial College wrote: “it is certainly true that we often rely on artists to interpret our world... Nigel Konstam’s work shows some fascinating aspects of this process.”


The introduction to my talk at The Wallace Collection reads “Konstam’s discoveries have proved surprisingly controversial considering that they agree entirely with the documentary evidence of of Rembrandt’s own contemporaries and earlier connoisseurship. They are clear and obvious to the layman observer. It is today’s scholars that are out of step.”