The Dutch Museum makes an authentication of the Rembrandt painting ‘Needle in a Haystack’

The Hague, Netherlands — A painting once rejected as a work by Rembrandt van Rijn is now accepted as a work by the Dutch master, thanks to a two-year inspection in the city where the then-27-year-old artist painted it in 1633, the museum announced Monday.

The Rijksmuseum, the Netherlands’ national museum of art and history, unveiled the work, “The Vision of Zacharias in the Temple,” and said painstaking analysis, including high-tech scans, confirmed that it was painted by Rembrandt after he moved to the capital, Amsterdam.

The painting has not been on public display for decades since it was purchased from a private collector in 1961, a year after it was deemed not to be a Rembrandt, the museum said in a statement. From Wednesday, it will go on display among other masterpieces at the Rijksmusuem, where it is on long-term loan.

Director Taco Dibbits said the museum gets emails from people asking if a painting they have might just be by a Golden Age master.

“We always hope to find a new Rembrandt, but it rarely happens,” he told The Associated Press. Such discovery is “(finding) a needle in a haystack,” he said.

The owner, who remains anonymous, initially asked the museum only if the painting was Dutch.

“He really didn’t know what he was. And then to discover that it was a Rembrandt was something that was amazing to experience,” said Dibbits.

The film depicts a biblical story in which the high priest Zacharias is visited by the Archangel Gabriel, who tells the priest that he and his wife will have a son: John the Baptist. Zacharias’ surprised expression is highlighted by the light heralding Gabriel’s arrival, the museum said.

An in-depth study of the work, including macro X-ray fluorescence scans and comparisons with other works by the artist, confirmed Rembrandt painted it, said Jonathan Bicker, the museum’s curator of 17th-century Dutch paintings.

“So the wood that was used for the panel on which it was painted, it certainly came from wood cut before 1633, the date of the painting,” he said.

“All the pigments, the paint in the painting, Rembrandt used in other paintings. And the layers of color and how he painted it, it’s the same as Rembrandt’s other works,” he said.

The work joins nearly 350 known Rembrandt paintings and raises hopes that there may be more.

“We’re not actively looking for new paintings by Rembrandt, but I think this gives us hope — not just for us, but for everyone who’s interested in Rembrandt,” Bicker said.