Detail of the Hayls painting before restoration.

Angels uncovered in 350-year-old painting
Secret details, including hidden angels, have been revealed in a 350-year-old British painting following a painstaking investigation by gallery staff.

By Roya Nikkhah, Arts Correspondent
Last Updated: 3:27PM GMT 27 Dec 2008

Little was known about A Portrait of a Lady and a Boy with Pan by John Hayls, the Baroque painter, when it was aquired by the Tate in 1995.

But a stencilled lot number on the canvas was found to refer to a Christie's sale in 1929, when the artwork - dated 1655-9 - had been described as "Portrait of Mrs Dobson, of West Peckham, Kent, and her son, Thomas Dobson, in a landscape with Satyr and Cupids".

Yet there was nothing cherub-like visible on the canvas. The mystery was resolved when an infrared photograph was taken, which revealed two Cupids holding a wreath, together with a rose being thrown into the lady's lap and a theorbo - a long necked lute - at the right of the painting.

Careful cleaning and restoration by Helen Brett, the Tate Paintings Conservator, uncovered the original composition, which is thought to have been overpainted around 70 years ago.

Now the work is to be exhibited at the Tate Britain for the first time since being cleaned and restored.

The Cupids, or "putti", were trademarks of the Flemish painter Sir Anthony Van Dyck, and their revelation on the painting show Hayls, who became famous for painting a series of portraits of the diarist Samuel Pepys, to have been an active copyist of Van Dyck's work.

A spokesman for the Tate, said: "Whether they were overpainted due to early twentieth-century prudery, or to conceal a change of colour in the pigments used for the sky, is a mystery."

The theme of a female sitter with a young male relative dressed as Cupid was introduced to English art by Van Dyck and the lady in Hayls' painting appears to be based on Van Dyck's portrait Mary Villiers as St Agnes, while the putti above her head echo the angels in Van Dyck's allegorical portrait Venetia Stanley, Lady Digby, as Prudence.

Hayls's newly restored painting will be exhibited alongside both works during the Van Dyck and Britain exhibition at Tate Britain in February.





Article: HERE