A blonde's dark secret: How a seductive beauty changed into a demure lady, 300 years after she was painted.

The National Gallery in London is exploring the world of Close Examination: Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries. A painting acquired as a 15th-century work in 1923 was proven to be a 20th-century forgery after scientific analysis of the materials used.

Occasionally science also betrays the errors of past research. At the time of its purchase in 1845, A Man with a Skull was attributed to Hans Holbein. A recent analysis of the painting’s wooden panel support has shown that the work actually postdates the artist’s death.

Scholars had already changed their minds about the Italian Renaissance painting Woman at a Window several times. Was it a portrait by Palma Vecchio, showing the artist’s daughter? Or even a painting by Lorenzo Lotto? In 1978 a routine restoration revealed a secret lying underneath the paint.

Suspected damages to the underlayer in the woman's brown hair prompted further investigation. But as the subsequent conservation report found, this was not a damaged underlayer at all. It was the original painting.

A dramatic transformation

It was now clear that ‘Woman at a Window’ had been covered with a later repainting. Conservators removed the repainting stage by stage, revealing a woman with a radically altered appearance. Far from being a demure brunette, she was a seductive blonde.

Her jawline had been softened, her breasts more discreetly veiled, and even her eyes had lost their sultry edge.

The painting that was revealed was hardly a likely portrait of an artist’s daughter. (It might even be a courtesan.) Nor does the painting look much like a work by Palma Vecchio. It is now attributed to an unknown Italian artist.

Victorian tastes

The most likely explanation for the dramatic and rather prudish alterations? The painting had fallen victim to later tastes. Knowing the highly conservative fashions of the day, it seems likely that this happened during the Victorian era. This is supported by the conservation report. The repainting could be removed from the canvas easily, showing that it had to have been done relatively recently.

It is possible that the painting was changed when it first came to the Gallery in 1855 — this cannot be ruled out. However, it seems more likely that the woman was painted over before the work entered the collection. Not all Victorian gentlemen preferred blondes: after the make-over she would have been far more attractive to the art market of the day.

Read more about the research on Woman at a Window. Discover a series of case studies about paintings from the Gallery’s latest exhibition, Close Examination: Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries (30 June — 12 September).

Technical Bulletin Volume 31, 2010

Four articles from Volume 31 have been published online to accompany the exhibition, Close Examination: Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries, 30 June - 12 September 2010. A further two articles will be published online to coincide with the publication of the print version in October 2010.

Culture and Arts, Art and Museums, Health and Science, Senior Women Web

A blonde's dark secret: How a seductive beauty changed into a demure lady, 300 years after she was painted.

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