Knowing how artworks were restored in the past is essential for our understanding of their present appearance. My colleague, paintings conservator Esther van Duijn, is currently working on a three-year research project to study the conservation history of the paintings collection of the Rijksmuseum.* During her research she came across the intriguing figure of Henricus Hubertus (or Har) Mertens, (chief) paintings restorer at the Rijksmuseum between 1930 and 1970. The first thing she read about Mertens was the anecdote that he had ‘chased one of his colleagues with an axe through the museum.’ Although she is yet to discover the ins and outs of the axe-chasing story (and we hope for more information on this rather unusual story of course), it soon became clear that there is much more to Mertens than this anecdote leads us to believe.
In 1930, at the age of 25, Mertens started as paintings restorer at the Rijksmuseum. Trained as an artist, it is yet unknown where he learned the restoration profession. In the same year, Christiaan Hendrik Jenner – already a carpenter in the museum since 1923 – joined Mertens. While Jenner mostly performed structural work on the panel or canvas painting supports, Mertens worked on the ground, paint and varnish layers. Together they formed the staff of the paintings restoration studio until well after World War II when a third restorer was employed as well as assistants and interns.
The war period was a trying time for the restorers, because large parts of the extensive collection were placed in and moved around between various bomb-free shelters throughout the country. When Rembrandt’s Night Watch returned from its shelter in June 1945, it became clear that it was in dire need of restoration treatment. Jenner relined the painting later that year; he adhered a new canvas support against the original canvas of the painting.
Mertens removed many of the old yellow-brown varnish layers. When the press was shown the result near the end of the treatment, reactions were unanimously positive: the sun shone over the Night Watch again! The Limburgsche Dagblad provides a breezy description of how after the restoration the City of Amsterdam gained a new artwork, which no longer presents the scene at night with its diffuse moonlight and its soldiers retreating into the dark shadows but that now ‘…the piece is drenched in golden sunlight, there is no nightly silence any more, but it is full of life with barking dogs, drumming tambours, blasting guns and the laughter of cheerful children.’
The treatment of the famous Night Watch firmly set Mertens’ reputation as a paintings restorer, and especially of works by Rembrandt. During his career he would treat all Rijksmuseum Rembrandts at least once and many external ones from international museums and private collections, including the Portraits of Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit in 1956. He is repeatedly described by curator and later director Arthur van Schendel as one of the six best restorers in the world.
During the final years before his retirement in 1970, Mertens became hugely dissatisfied with the museum, because of the multiple re-organisations and cutbacks the museum had to deal with at that time. Maybe this made him frustrated enough to chase somebody around with an axe, but it would be better to remember him as the skilled and highly-respected restorer of paintings that he was.
With many thanks to Esther van Duijn.
Erma
*Esther’s project is made possible through the generous support from the Luca foundation.
Looking through art 