In the past month alone, shadowy portraits have been found hidden in longstanding masterpieces by Titian and Picasso. What can they and other such discoveries tell us? Something's stirring. Every few weeks, it seems, brings news of a sensational discovery in the world of art – of paintings hidden under other paintings and vanished visages twitching beneath the varnish of masterpieces whose every square millimetre we thought we knew.
This past month alone has brought to light the detection of mysterious figures trapped beneath the surface of works by Titian and Picasso . But what are we to make of this slowly swelling collection of secret stares – these absent presences that simultaneously delight and disturb? In early February, it was revealed that researchers at the Andreas Pittas Art Characterization Laboratories at the Cyprus Institute, using X-rays and advanced imaging techniques, had proved the existence of an upside-down portrait of a mustachioed man holding a quill beneath the Italian Renaissance master Titian's painting Ecce Homo, 1570-75. On its surface, Titian's canvas portrays a bedraggled Jesus, hands bound by ropes, standing shoulder to shoulder with a sumptuously dressed Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who will sentence him to death.
What is this strange, erased, anachronistic scribe doing here and what is he trying to tell us? The presence of the hidden portrait, who peers imperceptibly through the craquelure – those alluring cracks in old master paint.