Public Programs @ The Institute

Series: Cook Lecture Series

Undoing the Past, Remaking the Present: The Trials of a Portrait by Rembrandt van Rijn
Speaker: Sue Ann Chui, Senior Conservator of Painting, The National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC

Friday, October 23, 2026 at 6:00pm

Old Master paintings rarely arrive untouched to us in the twenty-first century. From the time a work leaves an artist’s studio, anything can happen—and often does, sometimes beyond what could be imagined. The chain of custody, from the artist and their assistants to the dealer, collector, and conservator, leaves many opportunities for mishaps small or large, followed by attempts to repair the marks left by those events. Aside from human intervention, accidental or intentional, there are inescapable but natural consequences of time’s passage, in which the environment plays a distinct role in how a work ages. This idea of change over time due to human and environmental actions and reactions will be explored through the consideration of a painting by the Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

Rembrandt signed and dated the portrait now called Man with a Sheet of Music and presented it to its sitter nearly 400 years ago, ample time for the panel to undergo a variety of events. Many of these can only be postulated, but some have been carefully recorded. Being painted on wood it is particularly sensitive to changes in environmental conditions; this fact led to interventions aimed at preserving the artwork that instead reduced its stability. After the first documented treatment, each ensuing one was a thoughtful attempt to improve upon the last one’s failures following what was the best practice at the time. In this talk, the portrait’s history of treatments will serve as a jumping-off point to examine trends in the preservation of paintings on wood and the professionalization of conservation in the United States.

Sue Ann Chui joined the staff of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, in 2019, where she is a Senior Conservator focused on the care and preservation of paintings on wood. Prior to this, she was Associate Conservator at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Through her treatments and technical studies of Old Master Paintings, she has contributed to exhibitions and published on the materials and techniques of artists that include Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan (National Gallery London, 2011-2012); La Sainte Anne: l’ultime chef-d’oeuvre de Léonardo de Vinci (Musée du Louvre, Paris, 2012); and Andrea del Sarto: The Renaissance Workshop in Action (J. Paul Getty Museum, 2015). Sue Ann is a Professional Member of the American Institute for Conservation and was program chair of the Paintings Specialty Group in 2009. She was a Board member, Vice President, then President of the Western Association for Art Conservation 2013-2019; and just completed her service as the Paintings Working Group Coordinator of International Council Of Museums - Committee for Conservation 2023-2026 Triennium.

Sue Ann earned an MA in Art History and Diploma in Conservation from The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, after completing her final-year internship at the Hamilton Kerr Institute, Cambridge University. In 2021, she gave The Institute of Fine Arts’ Samuel H. Kress Lecture “New Narratives for Old Masters: Reflections on Works by Gerard David and Ercole de’ Roberti.” Her last publication deals with a portrait by Rembrandt van Rijn and its history of structural treatments.