An unfinished portrait of a woman believed to be Mary, Queen of Scots has been found hidden beneath another 16th-century portrait during a significant research project recently conducted at the National Galleries of Scotland and the Courtauld Institute of Art. The ghostly image of a woman, which shows compelling similarities to other, near-contemporary depictions of the queen, was revealed by X-ray photography during an examination of a portrait of Sir John Maitland, 1st Lord Maitland of Thirlestane, which is attributed to Adrian Vanson (died c.1604-1610). The portrait was one of a number of works by the portrait painters Adrian Vanson and Adam de Colone, two Netherlandish artists who worked in Scotland at the end of the 16th century and beginning of the 17th century, to be examined by conservator Dr Caroline Rae, the Courtauld Institute of Art’s Caroline Villers Research Fellow, who recently undertook a collaborative

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco is hosting Gods in Color: Polychromy in the Ancient World, an exhibition that presents ancient sculpture to Bay Area audiences as never before: in vibrant color. The exhibition reintroduces ‘polychromy’ – the painting of sculpture to dazzling and powerful effect. Defying the idea of the stark white marble of antiquity, the installation is the result of over 30 years of groundbreaking research in pigmentation of ancient sculpture by international scientists and archaeologists. On view at the Legion of Honor are nearly 40 reproductions of well-known Greek and Roman artworks painted in brightly colored authentic pigments, uniquely juxtaposed with 30 statues and carved reliefs from ancient Egypt, the Near East, Greece, and Rome from FAMSF’s’ own holdings, supplemented with magnificent loans from Californian and European collections. “Our visitors who imagine the classical

At the National Gallery this autumn, journey through a world of shadow and light. With more than fifty painted objects created over 700 years, Monochrome: Painting in Black and White is a radical new look at what happens when artists cast aside the colour spectrum and focus on the visual power of black, white, and everything in between. Paintings by Old Masters such as Jan van Eyck, Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt van Rijn, and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres appear alongside works by some of the most exciting contemporary artists working today including Gerhard Richter, Chuck Close, and Bridget Riley. Olafur Eliasson‘s immersive light installation ‘Room for one colour’ (1997) brings a suitably mind-altering coda to the exhibition. With major loans from around the world, and works from the National Gallery’s Collection, ‘Monochrome’ reveals fresh insights into the use of colour as a choice rather than a necessity.