The mysterious image was revealed by an X-ray taken when conservationists from the National Galleries of Scotland examined Van Gogh’s Head of a peasant woman (1885) prior to a new exhibition called A love for impressionism.
A routine cataloging procedure of a painting by Vincent van Gogh in the National Galleries in Scotland yielded an unexpected discovery: a hidden self-portrait on the back of the canvas. The portrait was unveiled as conservationists conducted an X-ray analysis of Head of a peasant woman as part of a cataloging exercise in preparation for an upcoming exhibition. Once the exhibit opens, visitors will be able to view the X-ray through a specially crafted light box in the center of the screen.
As I have previously reported, X-ray imaging techniques are a well established tool to help analyze and restore valuable paintings because the higher frequency of the rays allows them to pass right through paintings without damaging them. X-rays can reveal anything painted over a canvas or where the artist may have altered the original vision.
For example, that of Vermeer Girl reads a letter by an open window was first subjected to X-ray analysis in 1979, revealing the image of a Cupid lurking beneath the overpaint. And in 2020, a team of Dutch and French scientists used high-energy X-rays to reveal Rembrandt’s secret recipe for his famous impasto technique, which is thought to have been lost to history.
Last year we reported that researchers used infrared reflectography to see through the top layers of paint of the famous 1788 portrait, now housed in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, of 18th-century French chemist Antoine Lavoisier and his wife, Marie-Anne. , by Jacques-Louis David. The resulting reflectogram showed evidence of a carbon-based black underdrawing and dark, indistinct shapes indicating possible significant changes in composition. The team also used macro X-ray fluorescence imaging to map the distribution of elements in the paint pigments — including the paint used beneath the surface — to create detailed elemental maps for further research.
National Galleries of Scotland
It is also not the first time that a painting by Van Gogh has been subjected to X-ray analysis. In 2008, European scientists used synchrotron radiation to reconstruct the hidden portrait of a peasant woman painted by Van Gogh. Known for reusing his canvases, the artist had painted over them when he made 1887s piece of grass. The synchrotron radiation stimulates the atoms on the cloth, which then themselves emit X-rays that can be picked up by a fluorescence detector. Each element in the painting has its own X-ray signature, allowing scientists to identify the distribution of each element in the many layers of paint.
Van Gogh was also known for reusing a canvas by painting on the back. As Van Gogh expert Martin Bailey writes in The Art Newspaper:
The Edinburgh painting isn’t Van Gogh’s only double-sided painting using recycled canvas. In 1929, Dutch curator Jan Cornelius Traas removed the cardboard backs from three Nuenen paintings, exposing hidden portraits on the backs. And we can report that it has long been suspected that something is on the hidden side of Head of a peasant woman.
Completed in May 1885, Head of a peasant woman is one of Van Gogh’s more modest endeavors and was donated to the National Galleries in 1960 by an Edinburgh lawyer named Alexander Maitland. According to the museum, experts now believe it is part of a series of studies that Van Gogh made in response to a larger painting, The Potato Eaters (currently housed in the Vincent van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam), completed in May 1885.
Neil Hannan
The museum’s conservationists weren’t expecting much when they subjected the small painting to X-ray analysis. The resulting X-ray revealed a portrait of a bearded nanny in a brimmed hat and a neckerchief loosely tied around the throat, who looked very much like Van Gogh. The portrait was covered in layers of glue and cardboard, most likely applied in the early 20th century, possibly to better secure the painting before framing it for an exhibition.
“Look! We don’t see much of the farmer’s wife, but what we have is the lead white, the much heavier pigment he used for his face, which shows up after the x-ray has gone through the cardboard,” Lesley Stevenson, senior paintings conservator at the National Galleries of Scotland, to The Guardian. “Discovering a new work is extraordinary. Anything that gives us more information about the artist is a huge bonus and just shows the advantage of technological analysis, that we can still discover new things.”
The next step is figuring out how to remove the adhesive and cardboard layers from the self-portrait without damaging the other painting. It is unclear in what condition the self-portrait is more than a century later. “It’s like stepping into the unknown,” Stevenson told The Guardian. “The challenge will be to remove the glue from the oil paint layers, taking advantage of the difference in solubility of animal glue and oil paint.”
List image by Neil Hanna
