The existence of an earlier portrait beneath Edgar Degas’s Portrait de femme (Portrait of a Woman, around 1876-80), in the collection of Australia’s National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, has been known for decades. But a group of scientists at the Australian Synchrotron now have a good guess at who is underneath: Emma Dobigny, one of Degas’s favourite models, who worked with him from 1869-70.
The team scanned the painting using a rapid, non-invasive, high-resolution X-ray fluorescence (XRF) technique to map out the metallic elements, like Cobalt and Zinc, in the pigments of the concealed painting. A specially-designed software programme then layered the different elemental maps into a false colour profile of what this painting could look like. This XRF technique could solve other art historical mysteries, or even be used for authentication purposes, the team said in their report, published online last week. The identity of the woman in the visible portrait, however, remains unknown.