THE REMBRANDT RULE AND REPRESENTATION IN MUSEUMS

Breaking the Glass Case | Alexandra Forand

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“Treat every object as if it were a Rembrandt.” This good intentioned notion has become appropriately dubbed the Rembrandt Rule. This simple idea has been internalized in the psyche of museum professionals for decades and caused a lot of tension and heartache. This rule isn’t inherently bad, in fact it is what museums have built themselves around, because we want to keep objects for future generations to enjoy. This is the very reason we have departments like collection management and conservation.

An Actual Rembrandt painting of Rembrandt. Source.

Recently, this idea has come under fire, with some scholars (and insurance agents) pointing out not every artifact IS a Rembrandt. There are certain objects a collections manager is going to try and grab in a fire before evacuating the building. Even the most stringent conservator would agree that there is an unofficial object hierarchy in the museum, yet nobody talks about it.

Not only is the Rembrandt Rule unfeasible for many different reasons, I argue it dangerous and destructive for Indigenous objects, the communities and people those objects originally came from, and the future of how we remember their stories.

Should these Moccasins also be treated like a Rembrandt Painting? Source.

You see Indigenous objects left the places they originated under many different circumstances and for many different reasons. These objects are taken out of context and physically put behind glass, effectively removing them from history. Freezing them in time, if you will. This physical barrier is erected between object and the people it came from, but another wall is created, and this is not made out of plexiglass. Instead the second obstruction is the Rembrandt Rule. All of sudden that jingle dress that has been in your family for generations or those moccasins that look just like the ones your sister made for you become a museum object. When the object becomes a museum object, the people, heritage, and knowledge it represents can be overlooked in favor of making sure that object survives for future generations. It no longer matters that this rattle was supposed to be heated by the hands of a musician on certain feast days or that blanket was meant to keep children warm on chilly September nights. These museum objects are left there for people to look at, but never to touch, impossible to connect with, and easy to forget.

Jingle dress being danced at a celebration in PEI. Source.

A Jingle dress in the Glenbow Museum. Source. 

I do not mean to be so doom and gloom In this article. In fact, there are many institutions, armed with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report, that are breaking the Rembrandt Rule. For example, in 2010, five historic Blackfoot hide shirts from the Pitt Rivers Museum came to Alberta. For a brief time, people from Blackfoot communities were able to learn about, visit with, and even try on these pieces of their history.


According to Laura Phillips, “Museums play a critical role in sharing history and providing context and meaning to this history,” but when the object, and by association the history, is frozen in time, what exactly is being shared? Are we not just looking after the physical element of the object and thereby removing it further from the community it whence came? Or, is the Rembrandt Rule just another sacrifice museum professionals have to make to keep their collection healthy, safe, and available for the public? What are your thoughts? I really want to know! Leave a comment, send me an email (allyforand@gmail.com), or if Twitter and Instagram are more your speed my handle on both is @Ally_but_online.