Experts discovered a sketch of another work under Picasso’s “Woman in a Blue Shawl” painting. This was announced by the Art Museum of the Japanese prefecture of Aichi, quoted by “The Mainichi” Japan’s National Daily, BTA and TASS.
Museum officials have examined the painting together with colleagues from the United States. According to them, under the layer of the painting, painted in 1902, a sketch of the figure of a man with a low bowed head was discovered.
The work was created during Picasso’s so-called blue period from 1901 to 1904, when the artist often painted people in this pose. Perhaps Picasso reused the canvas because he could not afford to buy a new one.
Experts have explored working with a hyperspectral camera that can capture light by splitting it into waves of different lengths. The resulting images show that the head of the woman depicted in “Woman with a Scarf” repeats the outline of the figure from the sketch.
Picasso, who lived from 1881 to 1973, held on to “Woman in a Blue Shawl” for the remainder of his life and then his granddaughter inherited it. In 1988, a Japanese bank, which is now part of MUFG Bank, Ltd., bought it from Picasso’s descendants. The bank donated the painting to the prefecture as a featured piece at the museum upon its opening in 1992. It will be on display in the museum’s collection, along with the research results, from March 21.
