Rembrandt van Rijn’s “Portrait of a Young Woman” (1632, oil on oak panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961, 35 1/8 in. x 28 3/4 in. x 5 7/8 in.) returned home Feb. 3 to the Allentown Art Museum after two years of research and restoration at the Conservation Center, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, New York City.

The restored Rembrandt painting was to have gone on display to the public in June at the Allentown Art Museum.

However, the Allentown Art Museum closed to the public March 14 because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic shutdown.

Chris Potash, Allentown Art Museum Manager of Marketing and Public Relations, in a March 25 press release, stated that the Museum “will remain closed until further notice. The date of the Museum’s reopening will be determined when conditions allow.”

The Museum’s annual fundraising Gala, scheduled for April 4, was canceled, as were dozens of programs, events and talks.

In a July 6 email response to a query from The Press, Potash says that he will make an announcement as soon as possible as to when the Museum will be reopening.

Meanwhile, the Museum launched #AAMATHOME, to “bring the Allentown Art Museum into your home with at-home art activities, educational videos, online tours and more.”

The restored and reframed Rembrandt, now safely nestled in the Museum’s vault, is scheduled to go on display to the public Sept. 20, says Potash, in the Museum’s Kress Gallery.

“This is where we display our European, Renaissance and Baroque art. The majority of it is from the Samuel H. Kress Collection which was a significant collection that contributed to the founding and professionalization of this institution in the early ’60s,” says exhibition curator Elaine Mehalakes, Allentown Art Museum vice president of curatorial affairs.

“Portrait of a Young Woman,” a gift from the Kress Foundation in 1961, will be the focal point in the Kress Gallery when it is unveiled and displayed with Rembrandt prints.

“It will really be a celebration of this painting and going in depth about its history, its recent journey, the changes that have happened, and the new attention that has come to it,” says Mehalakes.

Several layers of varnish and additional overpainting applied to the painting during past centuries by conservators obscured Rembrandt’s telltale delicate brushwork. Researchers from the Rembrandt Research Project examined the work in the 1970s and attributed it to “Studio of Rembrandt.”

The varnish had dulled the colors, details and brushstrokes. The restored painting reveals colors that are truer to what the painting looked like when first painted.

After the painting was cleaned and conserved by Shan Kuang, assistant conservator and research scholar in the Samuel H. Kress Program in Paintings Conservation, experts now believe it was painted by Rembrandt himself, and not by an assistant.

Cherryville, Lehigh Township, born philanthropist Samuel H. Kress (1863-1955) amassed an impressive collection of artwork, then founded the Kress Foundation to distribute the works to the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. and to several museum galleries in smaller cities, including Allentown.

Information: www.allentownartmuseum.org; 610-432-4333