This new assignment was controversial: the opinion was challenged by Pietro Maria Bardi and Luiz Marques, among other experts, who credit the authorship of the painting to Rembrandt.

The young man with the golden chain stares directly towards the viewer, suggesting a certain reserve and a distant melancholy by his facial expression.

In 1966, the German historian questioned the traditional identification of the portrait, preferring to name the work with a generic title of Junger Mann in Reicher Tracht ("The young in rich costumes").

There are many references to the canvas as being one of the painter's masterpieces (John Smith, 1836; Carel Vosmaer, 1877, amongst others), also it is certified by a considerable number of old copies and depictions produced by other renowned artists such as William Hogarth.

In 1968, Gerson noted that the accreditation to Rembrandt "is not totally convincing” and in 1983 Sumovsky put forward the name Govaert Flinck as a possible painter of the portrait.

In 1998, Luiz Marques, Professor of Art History at Unicamp, also disagreed with the commission's judgement, listing a series of elements disregarded in the analysis by the Committee that, in his opinion, “distances the work from the radius of the Rembrandt action”.

Besides the above, the work was attributed to Rembrandt with more or less conviction by Hofstede de Groot, Abraham Bredius, Van Gelder, Haverkamp-Begemann and Christopher Brown amongst others, and by all the specialised critics prior to the 20th century, with the exception of Waagen.

Christopher Wright emphasised one in particular that was different from the others as it possessed a higher level of quality compared to the painting in São Paulo Museum of Art and had some variations in how the garments were portrayed.

There is also a record of a composition by Ferdinand Bol, a talented pupil of Rembrandt, which faithfully reproduces the work in the São Paulo Museum of Art.