ABC TV’s The Art Of explores the hidden artworks that may lie beneath classic oil paintings

Whether you’re a Fake or Fortune? super-fan or just a regular punter killing time at the art gallery on the weekend, it’s hard not to get sucked into a story about a hidden masterpiece.

In recent years we have been treated to many such discoveries: a lost self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh was discovered underneath another of his paintings in 2022; a 2014 X-ray of Picasso’s Blue Room revealed a portrait of a bearded man; and in 2016 a team of researchers found a face beneath a painting by Edgar Degas.

But not all these discoveries were made in internationally renowned art galleries like the Louvre or the Met.

One such X-radiographical revelation was made in our very own backyard.

Nicolas Régnier’s Hero and Leander has been in the National Gallery of Victoria’s collection since 1955. Painted by 17th-century French painter Nicholas Régnier, it tells the story of Hero discovering her dead lover’s body after he drowns in the Dardanelles (also known as the Strait of Gallipoli) while trying to reach her.

The work has been a pillar of NGV’s international collection since its acquisition: a competent and affordable C-list specimen of Baroque painting that aptly demonstrates the influence of Caravaggio on artists working in Italy during Régnier’s era.

However, several years ago when the gallery’s conservators X-rayed the painting, a big question mark appeared over the work.

A great white swirl in the upper-right quadrant of the canvas all but obscured the face and torso of Hero, leading the gallery to wonder if there could be a hidden painting beneath the work.

NGV’s senior conservator of paintings Carl Villis compares the experience to trying to make sense of forms in the clouds.

A remarkable discovery

Once the image was rotated 180 degrees, the X-ray suddenly made sense.

There was a hidden figure underneath the composition: a woman reclining, seen from behind, with her left arm outstretched.

This was a very rare discovery. “Often when we look at X-rays, we see modifications to something that we already see in the finished painting,” Villis explains.

“For example, a change in gesture or a smile or a turn of the head, minor adjustments to the image. What this was showing us though, was that there was a completely different painting underneath with a different theme that had no relation at all to what we see here.”

This figure may be evidence of an earlier composition that the artist was no longer happy with, or possibly a commission that was abandoned when funds from his patron dried up.

The first painting may not even have been painted by Régnier. It was not uncommon for artists to purchase second-hand canvases in his period, and the French artist was also a known collector and dealer of art.

As to what the underpainting is depicting, this reclining figure remains a mystery. 

I ask Villis if NGV has been able to match it with any recognisable Venetian works.

“It could take years of work, but let’s do it.”

Why do we love stories of X-rays revealing secrets in oil paintings?

Stories like this captivate the imagination. It’s exactly the kind of discovery that we imagine happens in art galleries all the time.

I call it the “Dan Brown effect”: the public’s interest in old paintings is often tied to the idea that there are hidden secrets under the oil paint, left by the artist to be passed down through the generations and only revealed long after their death.

Much to the irritation of art historians, conservators and curators alike, the Cluedo-ification of art appreciation has led to a blurring of history and fiction. For instance, some people genuinely believe the figure of St John in Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper is secretly a woman (no, it’s not), or that the prevalence of dragons in European iconography is evidence that they did indeed once roam the earth (again, no).

The reality of what goes on behind the scenes at museums and art galleries is, of course, a lot more mundane.

The not-so-exciting work of conservation

The less-glamorous side of art conservation rarely makes headlines. “Painting conservator spent 18 months cleaning an Old Master and discovered it’s a bit brighter than previously thought” is not exactly clickbait.

For every sexy new discovery of a lost Van Gogh or an artist’s change of mind, there are countless hours of labour that go into cleaning, stabilising and preserving the objects in our public collections.

Whether it’s patching holes and tears, removing mould spots, salvaging works from water damage or just making sure the artworks are stored correctly, this is the vital conservation work that ensures these treasures can be passed on to future generations.

A discovery like the hidden painting beneath Nicholas Régnier’s Hero and Leander doesn’t come around every day (or even every year) in the life of a conservator. But as Villis says, it’s a privilege to be on the frontline of discoveries – great and small – that shape how we understand an artwork.

“In a gallery as old as ours … we have a lot of paintings here that come from all different places and they’ve all got their own story to tell,” he says.

You can watch The Art Of… Starting Over on ABC iview now.