Experts Peeling Varnish Off Painting Find A Stunning Secret Beneath

There’s no doubt that Portrait of a Young Woman is attractive. It’s very old, too, dating from 1632. But perhaps because the work wasn’t deemed to be important, it had languished in the collection of the Allentown Art Museum in Pennsylvania for nearly 60 years. In 2018, though, the painting finally got its moment in the sun when it was sent to New York University for a clean-up.

And there’s a reason why the Allentown Art Museum had a hold of the painting in the first place. The institution first came into being during the Great Depression, with local people – led by the artist and critic Walter Emerson Baum – all working to create a haven for culture in their little part of the Keystone State. To begin with, this modest space exhibited works by mostly Pennsylvanian artists. But in the 1960s, there was a dramatic upswing in the museum’s fortunes.

That was when the Kress Foundation – founded by American businessman and philanthropist Samuel Kress – made a stunning donation to the museum’s collections. The organization donated no fewer than 53 paintings from the Renaissance era – a massive upgrade. And this donation motivated the good folk of Allentown to move the institution to a much grander home in the city, where it still stands today.

As you may have already guessed, one of the paintings that the Kress Foundation passed on to the Allentown Art Museum was Portrait of a Young Woman. This was a big deal, as at the time the work was attributed to Rembrandt. Unfortunately, though, in 1970 art experts in the Netherlands re-examined the painting and came to a devastating conclusion: it had in fact been created by a mere assistant of Rembrandt.

Presumably, the Allentown Art Museum’s staff and trustees would have been deeply disappointed when those Dutch art historians declared that Rembrandt had not painted Portrait of a Young Woman. Not every place has an original work by a legendary master, after all, and it would have been quite the coup for the small-town attraction if it had somehow managed to clinch one.

So, the painting remained on display in Allentown as a little-considered work by a Rembrandt understudy until 2018, when it was sent to New York University. There, it was subjected to a battery of tests, including electron microscopy, infrared scanning and X-ray procedures – high-tech indeed. But during these procedures, the conservators found that all was not as it seemed. There was something about this particular work that seemed strangely out of the ordinary.

And Portrait of a Young Woman bore all the hallmarks of someone who had learned at the knee of the great Dutch master himself. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn – for that is his full name – was born in Leiden in the Netherlands in 1606. As befits a man who made history for his astonishingly beautiful art, Leiden is an attractive city five miles or so from the Dutch coastline.

Rembrandt entered the world into a fairly prosperous family, too, although he had a lot of siblings – eight of them, as far as we know. His father supported the large clan by working as a miller, while his mother was the daughter of a baker. And Rembrandt would prove himself to be exceptional at a young age, as he was accepted by the University of Leiden at just 14.

But the young Rembrandt was apparently more interested in his art than studies. After just months at the university, he took on an apprenticeship with the artist Jacob van Swanenburgh, who had studied in Italy and was known as a history painter. This spell as an understudy to van Swanenburgh lasted for around three years.

In 1624 Rembrandt then moved from Leiden to the Dutch capital of Amsterdam. There, he joined the studio of Pieter Lastman for six months. Lastman was an artist whose paintings displayed a strong sense of narrative – a feature that would eventually figure large in many of his apprentice’s own works. If you’ve ever marveled over Rembrandt’s The Three Crosses or Christ Presented to the People, then, it’s Lastman you have to thank.

Finally, after learning his craft, Rembrandt returned to Leiden, where he opened a studio with his friend and fellow artist Jan Lievens. And in 1629 the fledgling artist had his talents recognized. Dutch diplomat and scholar Constantijn Huygens became a fan, and through him the artist now had a connection with the Dutch royal court in The Hague. A lucrative source of commissions from the likes of the powerful statesman Prince Frederik Hendrik would follow.

In 1631, though, Rembrandt moved back to Amsterdam and pursued a successful career as a portraitist. It’s worth noting that Portrait of a Young Woman was painted in 1632. At around this time, the artist also began to take on apprentices – helping others as his own teachers had once helped him. And Rembrandt cemented his reputation as an artist of great skill and quality before his death in 1669 at the age of 63.

Yes, many connoisseurs recognized Rembrandt’s genius during his lifetime, although he did have his critics. There were those who accused the painter of portraying too much ugliness in his pieces – a side effect, perhaps, of his commitment to stark realism. But today, Rembrandt’s work is accepted as some of the greatest art that the world has ever seen. It’s no surprise, then, that his paintings command extraordinary prices at auction.

In 2009 one of Rembrandt’s paintings from 1658 – Portrait of a man, half-length, with his arms akimbo – sold for over $33 million at Christie’s in London. At the time, this was the fourth-highest amount ever paid for a Renaissance work. It also broke the previous record for a Rembrandt – the $29 million sale of Portrait of a lady aged 62 in 2000.

And Rembrandt’s work has rocketed in price over the years – meaning only a few can ever afford it. In fact, in 2016 the governments of France and the Netherlands had to join together to buy a pair of works by the Renaissance master in a private sale conducted by Christie’s. It was just as well that they did, too, as the value of the pieces was quite astonishing.

The two works were portraits of a woman called Oopjen Coppit and her husband Maerten Soolmans. Rembrandt painted the two pictures in 1634 – just a year after the couple had wed. Each canvas measured around 83 by 53 inches and went for a staggering $95 million each.

Unsurprisingly, though, these enormous amounts of money make Rembrandt’s work a big target for thieves. And in 1972 three masked and armed desperadoes pulled off one of the heists of the century, nabbing themselves a painting by the grand master in the process. The trio clambered through a skylight on the roof of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in the dark of night before overpowering and binding the guards there. They then made off with jewelry and paintings that included the Rembrandt work Landscape with Cottages – a piece that has never been recovered.

Investigator Alain Lacoursière had a theory about the theft, though, and he recounted this to Radio-Canada in 2017. Lacoursière explained, “There were rumors at the time that members of the Mafia here were trying to construct a ship and that the canvases would be rolled up and put in the hold during construction. They are probably decorating the home or palace of a Russian, Italian or French Mafia member who may have exchanged them for drugs [or] weapons.”

And not one but two Rembrandts disappeared from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts in 1990. Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee was the only seascape that the great artist ever turned his hand to, and it was taken along with A Lady and Gentleman in Black. Both painted in 1633, these works were among 13 that were stolen in what the museum claimed to be the world’s highest-value unsold art theft.

On the night of the robbery, two men in police uniform arrived at the museum and were allowed to enter. They then handcuffed two guards. And after an uninterrupted 81 minutes, the thieves left the museum with their haul, which was worth around half a billion dollars. Apparently, a $10 million reward put up by the museum for information still stands, so be sure to contact the institution directly if you know anything about the crime.

Fortunately, the Allentown Art Museum has escaped the attention of art thieves, even although it owned what was believed to be an original Rembrandt. The generous gift came on behalf of the Kress Foundation, named after noted local philanthropist Samuel H. Kress.

The patron had made his fortune by founding the extensive chain of S.H. Kress stores, which the Kress Foundation website claims sold “affordable, durable and cheerful domestic merchandise.” At a certain point, there were around 200 Kress stores across the U.S. But the man had wider interests than just retail. For one, he spent much of his life assembling an outstanding collection of Renaissance art.

The Kress Foundation then distributed some of this incredible stockpile to public museums and galleries around the U.S. One of those paintings was the supposed Rembrandt one, which landed in Allentown in 1961. And when the Kress Foundation donated the piece, it was genuinely believed to have been painted by the venerable Dutch master.

But in 1970 the painting was reassessed by experts from the Rembrandt Research Project. The organization looks over paintings that are said to be by the great man to establish whether or not they are genuine. And sadly for the Allentown Art Museum and the good folk of the city, the Dutch specialists were clear: Portrait of a Young Woman was not by Rembrandt.

Yes, while the team judged that this work had indeed been painted in Rembrandt’s studio, it had been created by an assistant and not the master himself. What gave the game away? Well, apparently, it was the quality of the light in the painting as well as its coarse texture.

The experts also questioned the way in which the woman’s clothing was rendered in the portrait, as this seemed to lack clarity. The signature on the work raised concerns, too, as it appeared to be at variance with other examples found on authentic Rembrandts. And all this evidence was supported by previous X-rays that had raised queries about the painting’s brushwork.

We can imagine that this new attribution must have been a severe disappointment to the folks in Allentown. If the Dutch team concluded that the painting had indeed been a work from Rembrandt’s own hand, then it would have been extremely valuable and a highly prestigious piece of the museum’s collection. As it goes, though, Portrait of a Young Woman was duly exhibited as having been created by an understudy of Rembrandt’s.

Yes, the magnificent piece had been crafted by a student of Rembrandt’s rather than the artist himself. That didn’t make it a fake, although it was not quite a triumph. And Portrait of a Young Woman was certainly worthy of conservation – hence its trip to New York. But what did the experts in the Big Apple make of the painting?

Well, to begin with, the portrait was shipped off to the New York University Institute of Fine Arts in Manhattan. This organization works with the Kress Foundation to conserve the art donated to galleries around the country – including the Allentown Art Museum. According to the institute’s website, it provides “new information about the authorship, function, authenticity and original context to which these paintings belonged.” And that was how the specialists there approached Portrait of a Young Woman.

Various types of technology were used to scrutinize the Allentown painting once it fell into the hands of the New York University conservators. Portrait of a Young Woman was examined using a technique called infrared reflectography. It was also X-rayed and scanned with electron microscopy. And this meticulous analysis began to reveal some unexpected secrets about a work that had once been attributed to Rembrandt.

In particular, this high-tech scrutiny uncovered something intriguing about the quality of the brushwork in the painting. Apparently, this was remarkably similar to the brush strokes in other pieces that had without a doubt been painted by Rembrandt. And one of the New York conservators, Shan Kuang, revealed more when she spoke to the New York Post in February 2020.

Kuang told the newspaper that close examination of Portrait of a Young Woman “showed brushwork, and a liveliness to that brushwork, that is quite consistent with other works by Rembrandt.” But there was still another important stage of work to be done on the painting: removing the coats of varnish that had been applied over the years.

Elaine Mehalakes, the Allentown Art Museum’s vice president of curatorial affairs, explained to the New York Post, “Our painting had numerous layers of varnish, and that really obscured what you could see of the original brushwork as well as the original color.” So, what would be revealed once the conservators had peeled away this lacquer?

Speaking to CNN about the varnish added to Portrait of a Young Woman, Kuang pointed out, "It was the fashion in the 1920s to not see any texture. We call it a ‘mirrored surface’ – people wanted to see their reflection, which is really counter to what a Rembrandt should look like.”

Kuang continued, “The restorer was so frustrated building up the layers of varnish to make the texture disappear that he actually poured it on. It was the consistency of molasses, and you could actually see the drip marks.” The conservator claimed, however, that as this varnish was removed, “it became very apparent very quickly that the painting was of a very high quality.” And art historians then came to a unanimous conclusion: Portrait of a Young Woman was by Rembrandt after all.

As Kuang put it, "A number of scholars and curators have now looked at [the painting], supported the attribution and said that if this was in their museums, they’d label it as a Rembrandt. And I think that gave Allentown [Art Museum] the confidence to go ahead – and rightfully so.” Yes, after decades of misattribution, the museum could now declare with pride that it owned a bona fide Rembrandt.

Unsurprisingly, Mehalakes was jubilant about the conclusions of the experts. She told The Philadelphia Inquirer in February 2020, “We’re very thrilled and excited. The painting has this incredible glow to it now that it just didn’t have before. You can really connect with the portrait in the way I think the artist meant you to.”

Rembrandt was not just an outstandingly talented artist but also a prolific one, so attribution controversies are no rarity when it comes to his works. Writing in the Financial Times in 2014, art historian Bendor Grosvenor pointed out, “In the first half of the 20th century, Rembrandt was believed to have painted some 600 [to] 650 works. But from the 1970s onwards, that number shrank rapidly to around 250.”

So, after about 50 years of twists and turns, a team of restorers was able to show beyond a reasonable doubt that Portrait of a Young Woman was indeed the work of the great Dutch master. And who knows? Maybe other priceless Rembrandts are gathering dust in museums around the globe – all because of their layers of varnish. Renaissance art does tend to have its secrets. We are still learning incredible new truths about even the most famous works.

While the Mona Lisa is hands down the most recognized painting of all time, no one knows for sure who the subject of the painting actually is. Several experts believe that the woman in question was Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a merchant from Florence, Italy. Without any documents related to the commission, though, Mona Lisa's true identity is yet to be pinned down.

Numerous people have speculated over who the figure in the painting really was. They have looked deeply into the painting’s eyes, and they’ve studied her lips and strange smile. But the mystery remains about the expression she’s pulling. What exactly is it she’s trying to convey? Thousands visit the Louvre, Paris, every day, hoping to figure it out.

You could argue that any painting by da Vinci would garner this much attention. Many experts regard him as one of the best painters of all time — and that’s despite the fact that less than 20 of his paintings are still around today. Funnily enough, the secret experts discovered about the Mona Lisa could change everything we know about the artist and his work.

Those who trek to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa may be left surprised by what it actually looks like. When visitors crowd in front of the portrait, they’ll note a sheet of bulletproof glass protecting the precious artwork. Impressive, right? But the size of the painting is arguably less so.

The Mona Lisa measures in at a mere 30 inches by nearly 21 inches — a small portrait compared to some of da Vinci’s other famous works. The Last Supper, on the other hand, stretches to 15 feet in length and almost 30 feet in width. Still, the humbly sized Mona Lisa has made an indelible mark on the art community and beyond.

Many details about the Mona Lisa remain up for debate. For starters, it’s unclear when da Vinci painted the portrait. Some say that he began the painting in 1503 or 1504. The Louvre itself states that he worked on the project between 1503 and 1506. But other experts have noticed clues that suggest he painted it a bit later on.

Italian historian and da Vinci expert Carlo Pedretti, for one, said that the Mona Lisa couldn’t have been painted so early. Instead, he declared, the portrait represented the style the Renaissance painter used later on in life. For this reason, he felt da Vinci couldn’t have started the portrait until at least 1513.

It is also possible, of course, that da Vinci spent his later years perfecting the Mona Lisa — thus explaining why it represented his more mature techniques. Towards the end of the artist’s life, he accepted an invitation from King Francis I to move to and work in France. Some say that da Vinci brought the Mona Lisa with him, finishing it there in 1516 or 1517.

It would make sense, considering that the Mona Lisa has remained in France since da Vinci’s death in 1519. He had joined King Francis I’s court, so the monarch held onto the portrait and placed it into the royal collection. Interestingly, the Mona Lisa is said to have hung in Napoleon’s bedroom during his reign as Emperor of the French.

Eventually, though, the Mona Lisa found its place at the Louvre at the start of the 19th century. As more and more people started to visit the painting, they wanted to know who they were looking at. And some experts believe they have pinpointed the portrait’s subject.

According to many specialists, a Florentine housewife named Lisa Gherardini served as da Vinci’s inspiration for the Mona Lisa. And while they don’t know much about the woman’s life, a certain amount has been posited. At 15, for instance, she wed Francesco di Bartolomeo di Zanobi del Giocondo. Plus, her family provided a humble dowry, which suggests that she and del Giocondo married for love.

Over their life together, Gherardini and del Giocondo had five children: Piero, Camilla, Andrea, Giocondo, and Marietta. They moved into a home of their own in 1503 — the year in which many believe da Vinci painted her portrait. Commissioning the painting may have marked a celebration of their new property, as well as of the birth of Andrea.

In 1537 Francesco del Giocondo passed away, and his will lauded his wife. He gave her back her dowry, and he also handed over clothes and jewelry. According to the 2006 book Mona Lisa Revealed by Giuseppe Pallanti, del Giocondo’s will named her as “Mona Lisa, his beloved wife.”

At the time, the del Giocondo family couldn’t have known that a portrait of their matriarch would go on to make so many waves — nor that the man behind the painting would go down in history. Many consider da Vinci to be the prime example of a “Renaissance Man,” someone with extensive interests and unending curiosities. It just so happened that da Vinci excelled in multiple areas. These included math, engineering, anatomy, architecture, botany, sculpture, and paleontology.

Still, da Vinci is most famous for being a painter. He produced perhaps 20 paintings on his own, according to experts, but only 15 remain. The surviving masterpieces are worth a stunning amount of money. In November of 2017, for instance, his Salvator Mundi painting went for $450.3 million at auction. Yikes!

And somehow, that amount of money pales in comparison to the value of da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. The painting holds a Guinness World Record for having the priciest insurance valuation ever. In 1962 a policy for $100 million protected the painting. Nowadays, that coverage has a value of more than $852 million when adjusted for inflation.

All of these factors — the Mona Lisa’s intriguing subject, da Vinci’s place in history, and the painting’s value — explain why any new information regarding the portrait continues to make headlines. With that in mind, the Mona Lisa Foundation, a non-profit research group, had a stunning revelation to share in 2012. Based on analysis from X-rays and infrared and digital scanning, the organization posited that da Vinci had painted more than one image of the Florentine housewife. Yes, more than one Mona Lisa!

A second painting known as the Isleworth Mona Lisa was supposedly created at the hand of da Vinci. For over a century, this artwork had been hanging at a mansion in Somerset, England. It just so happened that an English art collector and connoisseur named Hugh Blaker visited the property ahead of World War I.

The original owner had purchased the painting in Italy, swayed by the claim that it was a da Vinci original. And when Blaker saw it more than 100 years after that, he too could see that the portrait was something special. So, the collector purchased it and ultimately transported it to his premises in west London’s Isleworth.

Blaker’s stepfather, John R. Eyre, gave further credence to the proposal that the painting really was a da Vinci original. Eyre helmed a study into the piece, eventually positing that the Renaissance artist had actually painted two portraits of Gherardini. The Isleworth version, he claimed, was the first of the pair.

The Isleworth Mona Lisa’s next owner, Henry F. Pulitzer, further theorized the painting’s origins. He published a book about the piece, but its contents may have been biased in order to serve its author. Pulitzer claimed that the Isleworth version was the real Mona Lisa. The second, more famous painting, he asserted, was not of Gherardini, but of someone else.

But Blaker, Eyre, and Pulitzer’s theories about the Isleworth Mona Lisa never really caught on with many experts. And it didn’t help that Pulitzer’s 1979 death sent the painting into obscurity — it remained locked in a bank in Switzerland for nearly 30 years. In 2008, though, the painting emerged from its storage place. And thus began the research to find out the truth.

When the Isleworth Mona Lisa came back into the spotlight, the Mona Lisa Foundation was formed to determine the veracity of claims that da Vinci had painted it. According to the BBC, vice president David Feldman has claimed that the organization “does not have any stake in the painting.” And so they strived “to examine facts in the most objective light possible.”

To determine whether or not the Isleworth Mona Lisa was an original, the foundation relied firstly on historical sources. For one thing, da Vinci did occasionally produce several versions of the same subject. Perhaps most famously, the Renaissance man painted two copies of the Virgin of the Rocks. One of these is on display in the Louvre, while the other hangs in London’s National Gallery.

On top of that, the foundation considered the acclaimed artist Raphael’s drawing of the Mona Lisa. He had crafted his own sketch of the Mona Lisa from memory, having seen da Vinci’s work in progress around 1505. Raphael’s drawing contains columns, the bases of which are present in the more famous Mona Lisa. In the Isleworth version, though, you can see the columns fully.

Another point worthy of consideration is the fact that Gherardini herself appears younger in the unconfirmed portrait. It may have been that del Giocondo commissioned the first in 1503, while another patron named Giuliano de’ Medici asked for the second version a decade after. This would explain the apparent age gap between the two women.

Finally, a research physicist from the University of California named John Asmus has supported the notion that there are two versions of this famous painting. In fact, according to Feldman from the Mona Lisa Foundation, the findings of Asmus’ peer-reviewed work are almost 100 percent certain. Referring to this research, Feldman has concluded, “The same artist painted at least the face of both the Isleworth and Louvre Mona Lisas.”

With that, Feldman claimed, “If one denies the Isleworth is by da Vinci, then one also denies the Louvre version.” But not all experts are convinced that both paintings come from the hand of the Renaissance man. The Mona Lisa Foundation itself has come into question regarding its intentions for claiming that the painting is real.

For one thing, membership of the Mona Lisa Foundation’s board was murky in 2015, to say the least. Feldman would neither confirm nor deny that those who bought the Isleworth Mona Lisa served on the organization’s board. He also wouldn’t answer if the purchasers hoped to sell their acquisition as a real da Vinci painting.

Another questionable detail of the Isleworth Mona Lisa was that the artist painted it on canvas. When da Vinci created art, he generally brushed his oils onto wood, not a fabric base. This was especially true in the latter part of his career when he perfected his method. Very early on, he did use a linen canvas, but this was a rare choice for the artist.

University of Oxford art history professor Martin Kemp had one of the loudest voices against the Mona Lisa Foundation’s findings. He said that the organization used infrared technology to reveal under-drawings beneath the surface of the Isleworth Mona Lisa, thus proving the painting was original. However, the professor countered, these marks didn’t match with the artist’s usual preparation practices.

In fact, Kemp so strongly believed that the Isleworth Mona Lisa wasn’t an original da Vinci that he never even traveled to see it. He explained, “[I saw] nothing to convince me that seeing it in the flesh is of high priority. I am sent many non-Leonardos – as many as one a week – and have to make choices. If I traveled to see every hopeful ‘Leonardo,’ I would be impoverished.”

So, two different verdicts have come in on the Isleworth Mona Lisa. In the meantime, though, the potential da Vinci has traveled the globe for exhibitions in Singapore in 2014 and Shanghai in 2016. Then, in June 2019 it landed back where it may have been painted in the first place — in Florence, Italy.

The Florentine exhibition took place at the city’s Palazzo Bastogi. And as it happened, this occasion marked the Isleworth Mona Lisa’s first European display in the 21st century. And the showing ultimately ended with a bang, when an unnamed person put forth an unexpected claim for 25 percent ownership of the painting.

This unnamed person came from a “distinguished European family,” as the lawyer representing them told CNN. But although legal expert Giovanni Battista Protti was happy to speak to CNN, he wouldn’t reveal the name of the person or people behind the claim. He did say, though, that the Isleworth Mona Lisa’s former owner had sold his client a quarter stake in it.

The claimant made their move to prevent the Isleworth Mona Lisa from ending up in a vault again. Through Protti, they asked the Italian courts to take possession of the potential da Vinci until they could confirm its ownership. The Mona Lisa Foundation denied the family’s claims, though, and promised that they would appear in court, too.

It seems the family behind the claim weren’t interested in making an enormous windfall. Protti rebutted, “As owners of the painting, their [aim] is to let this painting be shown to the public... When you own this kind of [artwork] you have to be a custodian.”

That same argument could be made for determining the truth about the Isleworth Mona Lisa. Maybe experts will never know whether it’s a da Vinci original or not. But as Protti said about putting the painting on display, “It’s not a matter of money. It’s just a matter of patience, of something that has to be done. It has a value not just for private [individuals] but for humanity.”

Secrets about da Vinci’s works are being unraveled every day. In 2019, for instance, a group of specialists made an incredible discovery beneath the canvas of The Virgin of the Rocks. It’s safe to say this find left the art world completely amazed.

These particular paintings depict Jesus Christ and his mother Mary, along with an angel and John the Baptist. And as we mentioned earlier, the older version is currently displayed in the world-famous Louvre museum in Paris, France, while the second is housed at London’s National Gallery.

Interestingly, an intriguing discovery was made about the latter work back in 2005. During that period, experts at the National Gallery found an alternative composition of the Virgin underneath the painting. Then, some 14 years later, a larger revision came to light thanks to an ambitious research project.

But first, back in 2005 a group of researchers at the National Gallery discovered a sketch underneath the piece. As it turned out, it was an alternative composition of Mary in another position.

The incredible find was made thanks to the use of “infra-red techniques,” with the experts picking up on some other outlines. Then, at the start of 2019 more research was conducted by the gallery, as it prepared to open up a new exhibition. However, few people could have predicted what would be revealed.

In their most recent examination, the group of researchers scanned the painting exploiting a new technique, known as macro X-ray fluorescence. This meant they were able to uncover more of da Vinci’s initial sketches beneath the piece. This was made possible due to the drawing material the artist had used, which included traces of zinc.

Thanks to those scans, the experts could see additional drawings of both Jesus and the angel, alongside the previous sketch of Mary. A representative of the National Gallery spoke to U.K. newspaper The Guardian about the discovery. “Why Leonardo abandoned this first composition still remains a mystery,” they said in August 2019.

The spokesperson continued, “Handprints resulting from patting down the priming on the panel to create an even layer of more or less uniform thickness can also be seen. Probably the work of an assistant – but perhaps even by Leonardo himself.” That wasn’t all, though, as they also touched upon the composition itself.

“Both figures are positioned higher up in the drawing,” the representative added, “while the angel, facing out, is looking down on the infant Christ with what appears to be a much tighter embrace.” A short time after that, the gallery’s conservation head Larry Keith shared his reaction to the findings.

During an interview with BBC News in August 2019, Keith explained what the discovery signified to him about the painter’s process. “[The sketches] give new insight into how da Vinci was thinking,” he said. “[It fits] into a wider narrative of how we understand him as an artist who was always changing, adjusting and revising.”

Keith added, “We had an awareness of part of the composition. And now we have a great deal more understanding of the whole group arrangement.” We, for one, can’t wait to see what exciting discoveries are made about da Vinci’s work in the years to come.