Corine Schleif simply called it an “anomaly.”
The painting was an epitaph — a work commissioned after the passing of a noble — and it was normal except in one respect: it featured both of the husbands the woman had during her life.
So Volker Schier, an affiliate of the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, and Schleif, an ASU professor of art history, were commissioned to find out what was going on.
The pair use infrared photographs to determine the authenticity of, or sometimes just to get a different view of, classical works of art.
In the case of the epitaph, they found that only the first husband had been in the original draft of the painting, but the second was added some time later.
They speculate that the children had something to do with the re-working of the painting.
“Originally there was just one husband,” Schleif said, “and they wanted the other new husband there.”
This isn’t the first time Schleif and Schier have had a mystery like this to solve: the two have been using the technology since 2002, and are frequently commissioned in Germany to examine the works.
“It’s funny that nobody ever contacted us in the Valley,” Schier said.
The technology allows for a look at the artist’s “underdrawings,” Schier said, which act as an artistic fingerprint and can determine who made the painting.
Infrared photography can also determine if a painting is a fake, though Schier said this seldom happens.
But that’s not really the point of the technology, Schleif said.
“More important than that, we find the conversations that were happening at the time,” she said.
Painting over an existing piece, which happens regularly, can show what was deemed inappropriate for the era.
One case dealt with how appropriate it was to show Jesus Christ without clothing, or if the painting should be “more discreet,” Schleif said.
“They thought it indecent … and they wanted to show Christ as being innocent and vulnerable,” she said.
To fully realize the depth and history of the pieces, however, takes more than just a nice camera.
Without the art history background that Schleif and Schier come from, it’s difficult to explain why it’s important that a painting was re-worked, or why its first draft matters.
“You have to learn how to interpret these things,” Schleif said. “They don’t read themselves.”
Reach the reporter at clecher@asu.edu
