A Picasso Palimpsest

“For years conservators and art historians have known that hidden beneath the surface of Woman Ironing, long considered an example of his Blue Period, is the upside-down ghost of another painting – a three-quarter-length portrait of a man with a mustache that was first seen in images taken with an infrared camera in 1989.” Newer technology and conservation techniques have revealed far more about the painting than anyone expected.