Girl with a Pearl Earring
The background was never a void. Two pigments faded over 350 years and erased a deep green curtain. Vermeer painted her in front of fabric, not emptiness.
Read the layers →
Las Meninas
The knighthood cross on his chest was not in the original painting. He received it three years later and went back to add it. Some believe King Philip IV painted it himself.
Read the layers →Olympia
Guards had to be stationed to protect the painting from visitors who tried to attack it with umbrellas and walking sticks. The scandal was not the nudity. It was the gaze.
Read the layers →The Arnolfini Portrait
Van Eyck did not sign this painting. He wrote on the wall above the mirror: Johannes de Eyck fuit hic. Jan van Eyck was here. A witness statement, not a signature.
Read the layers →The Garden of Earthly Delights
In the hell panel, a figure has music notation written on their body. In 2015, a student transcribed it. It is a real piece of music. It has been performed.
Read the layers →
The Night Watch
It was never called The Night Watch. It was trimmed on all four sides to fit between two columns in 1715. The composition you know is a crop. The original has never been widely seen.
Read the layers →