One of the frescoes in the Louvre found a hidden image of a thousand years ago

“Terahertz” rays revealed a latent image of a person’s face under the surface of one of the frescoes exhibited in The Louvre . This technology has long been used for tele-scanning baggage at airports, but now it has been adapted by scientists to “shine through” art objects.

A visualization method called THz spectroscopy is based on the use of relatively weak electromagnetic radiation. In this case, the method was used to search for a hidden image under the top layer of Trois hommes armés de lances, a fresco supposedly dated from the 19th century from the Giampietro Campana collection. Now, scientists have reason to believe that this is an earlier original Roman fresco.

“We were amazed, and we were delighted,” said J. Bianca Jackson, reporting on the American Chemical Society project. “We could not believe our eyes when the image materialized on the screen. Under the upper picture in the folds of a person’s tunic, we saw another person’s eyes, nose and mouth. We believe that this is probably part of an ancient Roman fresco that can be more than a thousand years old. ”

The search for old images below the surface of later paintings is not uncommon today. Artists often painted over their old works due to lack of funds for the purchase of new materials, or considering their works to be unsuccessful. In addition, modern methods of physical and chemical analysis, such as radiography, ultraviolet luminescence and infrared reflectogram, make the process of recognizing latent images easier and more reliable.

However, according to Jackson, “none of the previously used visualization methods, including almost half a dozen that are commonly used to detect hidden images in the lower layers, fake signatures of artists and other information not visible on the surface, revealed a lost image on this fresco. ”

“This opens the door to the wider use of this technology in the art world. We plan to use this method to study the Russian religious icon and the dugout wall in one of the first human settlements in the territory of ancient Turkey, ”the scientist continued in an interview with the Associated Press.

Anna Sidorova © Gallerix.ru