removing the original painting in that area. He must have felt that it would be more efficient to start over than to preserve the remaining original paint residue. He proceeded in the same manner in other areas of the painting, especially in the image of the Child, where he entirely repainted the lower part of the face and shoulders. Van der Veken also painted several areas with new paint probably because they were worn. In addition, he painted over entire surfaces, rather than execute multiple, small retouches to integrate the whole picture. Like in the restoration of the Renders Magdalena, he again mimicked the craquelure through various methods. Radiographic recording showed how little is left of the original paint layers. The Renders Man of Sorrows Another painting of the Renders Collection, a 15th-century Man of Sorrows owned by the Metropolitan Museum in New York was submitted to testing in 1992. It had already been relegated to the Museum's storage in 1974 after experts from the Courtauld Institute of Art deemed it to be a completely modern forgery. The 1992 tests came to the conclusion that the painting was based on an original painting of the second half of the 15th century to which a later restorer deceptively had added new elements such as the background and the figure of the angel. The suspicion is that this restorer was Jef Van der Veken. Conclusion The conclusion of the recent scientific findings is that both Van der Veken and Renders appear to have engaged in intentional art forgery. Since these revelations, all the works that had belonged to the Renders Collection or had been handled by Van der Veken and even his son-in-law Albert Philippot, many of which hang in major museums in Belgium and abroad, are viewed with suspicion. References External links Art collectors from Antwerp Art copyists Art forgers 1872 births 1964 deaths 20th-century Belgian painters Conservator-restorers