Hidden Cupid resurfaces in one of Vermeer’s best-known works

During the restoration of Vermeer’s Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window it was discovered that a depiction of Cupid had not been overpainted by the artist
© Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

A hidden Cupid in Vermeer’s Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, one of the world’s most famous paintings, is set to resurface on the canvas after two and a half centuries behind a layer of paint. Produced in around 1657, Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window has been in Dresden’s city collections since 1742 and is one of just 35 paintings definitively attributed to Vermeer. After laboratory tests at Dresden Academy of Fine Arts and x-ray fluorescence examinations conducted with the support of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam confirmed that the overpainting was significantly newer than the painting, the decision was taken in early 2018 to remove the later paint and expose the Cupid.

Source: www.theartnewspaper.com