Newspaper Found beneath Picasso’s Painting Held by Japanese Museum

June 6, 2018

Hakone, Kanagawa Pref.- Employing a state-of-the-art imaging technology, Japan's Pola Museum of Art has discovered jointly with foreign museums that Pablo Picasso created his early oil painting masterpiece "Mother and Child by the Sea" over newspaper attached to the canvas.

According to the announcement by the Japanese museum in Hakone, Kanagawa Prefecture, southwest of Tokyo, on Tuesday, hyperspectral infrared imaging, a space exploitation technology, conducted in April discovered French newspaper articles underneath the painting's surface.

Later, it was confirmed that the articles, which contain words meaning "automobile" and "president" in English, were run on the Jan. 18, 1902 edition of the French daily Le Journal.

The discovery is significant as it has made it clear that Picasso painted Mother and Child by the Sea in Barcelona after Jan. 18, 1902, the Pola museum said, adding he returned from Paris to the Spanish city in early January that year.

The Japanese museum carried out the latest study of the painting in its Picasso collection, which represents the so-called Blue Period works the renowned artist in the 20th century produced in his early 20s, together with the foreign partners including the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

In its research in 2005 jointly with a Japanese institute, the Pola museum found in radiographs another painting beneath Mother and Child by the Sea.

This time, a third painting was detected on the same canvas, the museum also said.

Chances cannot be ruled out that Picasso used newspaper to cover underlying compositions, it said. Jiji Press