Earlier this week, the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden unveiled its restoration of Jan Vermeer's Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window (c. 1657-59). As this piece from the Art Newspaper explains, the restorers determined through a variety of chemical tests that a painting within the painting of a Cupid — which had been covered over and made into an austere blank wall and was only later revealed by a late 20th century X-ray — could not have been blotted out by Vermeer, as had been assumed.
Stench monsters
Stench monsters
Stench monsters
Earlier this week, the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden unveiled its restoration of Jan Vermeer's Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window (c. 1657-59). As this piece from the Art Newspaper explains, the restorers determined through a variety of chemical tests that a painting within the painting of a Cupid — which had been covered over and made into an austere blank wall and was only later revealed by a late 20th century X-ray — could not have been blotted out by Vermeer, as had been assumed.