Restore precious painting work with X-rays

An unfinished self-portrait of the famous Dutch Rembrandt artist has been discovered underneath the painting 'Old Man with a Beard' dating back to about 1630.

Experts believe that, although the picture does not describe the details of the face, it has lines in line with another Rembrandt painting in 1633.

A famous portrait of Rembrandt (left)
with newly discovered picture (right). (Photo: BBC)

At Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York and the ESRF Center in Grenoble, France, the team used X-ray scanning to find the pigment hidden beneath the paint.The X-ray fluorescence measurement revealed various chemical elements in the paint, from which the unfinished self-portrait of this famous artist was discovered.

'Old Man with a Beard' picture (Photo: Rembrandt Museum, Amsterdam)

Art historian Ernst van de Wetering, head of the painting research project Rembrandt, said there is a similarity in the style between the self-portrait and the works of Rembrandt in the 1630s.

'This is considered the first original of Rembrandt's self-portrait , ' added Koen Janssens from the University of Antwerp, Belgium.