Discovered portrait behind Van Gogh painting "Portrait of a Peasant Woman"
Today I read on the newspapers a quite interesting discovery!
"Art curators at the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh found a self-portrait of Vincent Van Gogh, hidden on the back of the painting "Portrait of a Peasant Woman" painted by Vincent Van Gogh in 1885".
The news (always the same everywhere, simple copy-paste), continues with:
It was possible to see the portrait by observing the painting through x-rays, so without damaging it. The Museum immediately admits that it is an "incredibly rare" find (and I agree with them, it is very rare to make such a discovery).
Then they provide additional (vague) information to make the text a bit longer and get the top position in the search engine results, like:
The back with the artist's face was covered with several layers of glue and cardboard, apparently added before an exhibition at the beginning of the last century. About 15 years after Van Gogh death in 1890, the painting was loaned for an exhibition to the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam. It is believed that on that occasion the canvas was glued onto cardboard before being framed, hence the reason for the particular state of conservation which for a long time prevented the discovery of the image on the back.
but obviously no more detailed information is provided and all sources are missing !!! therefore verifying the information is very tricky!
Some (reputable ???) websites even write:
but looking at the x-ray image made public, it is obvious that the face cannot be seen well and certainly both ears are not visible !!!
Apart from that, my question is: why does every website around the world write that this is a self-portrait? Just because it is on the back of a Van Gogh painting, does it automatically mean it is a Van Gogh self-portrait?
Even if is a self-portrait, wouldn't be logical to expect that Van Gogh used a mirror to look at himself? In this case, shouldn't the only ear we see in the x-ray image be the right ear?
Is really this the direction modern journalism is taking?
