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X-ray of Modigliani portrait
An x-ray reveals the previously unknown painting by Amedeo Modigliani emerging from behind one of his masterpieces. Photograph: Mark Heathcote and Abbie Soanes/Tate Photography
An x-ray reveals the previously unknown painting by Amedeo Modigliani emerging from behind one of his masterpieces. Photograph: Mark Heathcote and Abbie Soanes/Tate Photography

Modigliani portrait comes to light beneath artist's later picture

This article is more than 6 years old

Tate’s x-ray tests find concealed portrait of artist’s partner Beatrice Hastings under one of his masterpieces

A portrait by Amedeo Modigliani has been discovered hidden on the canvas beneath one of the artist’s masterpieces. Modigliani’s portrait of a girl was found concealed by his later portrait, also of a girl, which was painted in 1917 and is kept at the Tate Gallery in London.

While the identity of the 1917 sitter is unknown, the hidden portrait is believed to depict the artist’s former lover and muse, Beatrice Hastings, a free-spirited writer. One theory is that, as their stormy relationship of two years had ended by 1916, Modigliani may have wanted to airbrush her out of his life.

Nancy Ireson, the Tate’s curator of international art, said: “It’s a hypothesis, but I think it’s rather a nice one … It’s quite interesting to think that he might have painted her out. So often, when you see a canvas reworked, it’s impossible to actually read the image beneath. To be able to make out the figure is exciting. It’s almost a full-length figure.”

The moment that x-rays unexpectedly showed the hidden portrait for the first time was exciting, she said. “It’s a ‘secret’ that a painting suddenly reveals through a different way of looking.”

Modigliani is revered for his iconic elongated portraits and sensual nudes. Such is his popularity these days that his 1917-18 masterpiece, Reclining Nude, was sold in 2015 for £113m, making it at the time the second most expensive artwork sold at auction.

Modigliani’s 1917 painting Portrait of a Girl, which concealed or ‘airbrushed out’ his earlier painting. Photograph: Tate Photography

Although the artist gained recognition during his lifetime, he faced financial struggles, selling drawings for a few francs and, in 1919, offering the entire contents of his studio for just £100. He was 35 when he died in 1920 of tubercular meningitis. Hastings came to an equally tragic end. Her health ruined by alcohol, she was terminally ill when, in 1943, in England, she took her own life.

Theirs had been a two-year intensely passionate relationship, with rows fuelled by alcohol and drug use. He was a handsome bohemian Italian whom she once described as “a swine and a pearl”, but she inspired several portraits.

The Tate describes how, even within the bohemian milieu of Paris in the 1910s, they were “a feral, wayward pair”. The gallery notes: “He lived in a haze of intoxication – absinthe, wine, hashish – and would dance on tabletops, howl out lines of Italian verse, and rampage through the streets at night. She had as many faces as voices. Modigliani’s portraits together convey a shape-shifting, highly volatile nature.”

One contemporary described her as “an hysteric … intoxicated from nine o’clock on” and “infatuated with Modigliani”, adding: “There were frightful scenes of jealousy. They drank together, they fought, they beat each other.” Hastings described one of their fights: “We had a royal battle, 10 times up and down the house, he armed with a pot and me with a long straw brush …” But she added: “How happy I was!”

The hidden portrait emerged during a technical research study. Museums and art historians worldwide are collaborating on a project initiated by the Tate n preparation for its current exhibition on Modigliani at Tate Modern until 2 April. It is among initial findings to be published this week in the Burlington magazine.

In studying Modigliani’s materials and methods, museums and galleries have examined artworks with x-radiography, among other techniques.

Modigliani has been described as one of the world’s most faked artists. Last year, an exhibition at the Palazzo Ducale, in Genoa, closed early after Italian prosecutors alleged that 21 of some 60 works were possible fakes.

The latest scientific testing determines details such as the pigments and canvases used, which has helped to establish precisely what makes up an authentic Modigliani work.

The new project paints “a far bigger picture”, scholars write in the Burlington: “The need for a better understanding of Modigliani as a practitioner is clear, not only because of the controversy that surrounds the question of autograph works, but also, and most importantly, because of the lack of technical research into his accepted œuvre.”

The definitive study of Modigliani’s work is a 1970 catalogue raisonné, which is now widely accepted as being out of date. Kenneth Wayne, a leading Modigliani scholar, is leading a project to publish a new inventory. Up to 60 new works were likely to be added, he said.

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