The Art of Operations: A Conversation with Don Boas
Conservators at the National Gallery of Art made an interesting discovery hidden behind Titian’s ‘Venus with a Mirror.’ The painting depicts the goddess of love and beauty sitting amid detailed fabric, and fur. A cupid holds a mirror up to her, and she gazes at the reflection. When the research department x-rayed the piece, they found beneath the paint an earlier composition featuring a man and a woman standing side by side. Titian had rotated the canvas and painted Venus on top of it.