'Fake' Rembrandt came from artist's workshop and is possibly genuine

Head of a Bearded Man revealed to be from same wood panel used for Rembrandt's Andromeda

A tiny painting of a weary, melancholic old man long rejected as a fake and consigned to a museum basement has been revealed as one from Rembrandt's workshop, and possibly by the man himself.

The Ashmolean museum in Oxford will this week put on display Head of a Bearded Man (c 1630) which was bequeathed to it in 1951 as a Rembrandt panel. In 1981, it was rejected by the Rembrandt Research Project, the world's leading authority on the artist that effectively has a final say on attributions.