#infrared-underdrawing

#infrared-underdrawing

The oil on canvas presents an unusual and dynamic composition of a serene Madonna alongside her energetic child with a reverent Saint John pressed up close in the painting's foreground.

Advanced imaging and material analysis have led experts to reattribute a long-overlooked biblical scene to Rembrandt van Rijn, identifying the 1633 painting as a lost masterpiece after more than six decades of doubt. Titled Vision of Zacharias in the Temple, the work was last studied in 1960, when scholars ruled out the possibility that it could be by the Dutch master.

About ten years ago researchers across a wide range of disciplines, from forensic science and genetics to art history, got together with the goal of finding the Renaissance artist's DNA. Da Vinci had no children, and his remains were disturbed during the French Revolution. The hope is that uncovering his DNA could open the door to a number of discoveries, including new tools for authenticating artwork and potential clues about da Vinci's uncanny way of seeing the world.

An analysis of two paintings in museums in the US and Italy by the 15th-century Flemish artist Jan van Eyck has raised a profound question: what if neither were by Van Eyck? Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata, the name given to near-identical unsigned paintings hanging in the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Royal Museums of Turin, represent two of the small number of surviving works by one of western art's greatest masters, revered for his naturalistic portraits and religious subjects.

Once again, A.I. and human experts are butting heads over the authenticity of a world-famous painting. A Belgian art historian has refuted claims made by Swiss company Art Recognition that two paintings have been falsely attributed to the Northern Renaissance master Jan van Eyck. The paintings in question are versions of Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata (ca. 1428-32) belonging to the Royal Museums of Turin and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Recently, AI decided that a painting long thought to be a copy of Caravaggio's The Lute Player is actually by the master, while another version of the same subject, previously thought to be authentic, is not. Both conclusions were disputed by the former Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Keith Christiansen. A similar debate erupted in March 2025 when AI declared that portions of The Bath of Diana, also long believed to be a copy, could have been painted by Peter Paul Rubens.