Pablo Picasso’s mystery woman revealed: New painting is found hidden beneath one of artist’s earliest works 124 years on

A hidden painting of a mystery woman has been found lurking beneath one of Pablo Picasso’s earliest works from his Blue Period, experts have revealed.

Conservators from The Courtauld Institute of Art in London made the incredible discovery after using specialist x-ray and infrared imaging on Portrait of Mateu Fernández de Soto, ahead of the painting going on display in a new exhibition that opened yesterday (Friday). 

Experts have speculated who the mystery woman might be, with theories ranging from a posed model to a friend, a woman seated in a bar – or even a lover. 

The painting, which was completed in 1901 while Picasso was aged just 19, depicts his Spanish sculptor friend who was living in Paris with him at the time – and is significant in showing the artist’s changing style.

Picasso had begun moving away from the more colourful paintings of the Impressionists towards what experts describe as ‘a distinctly more melancholy artistic style’ known as his Blue Period.

The more contemplative approach using tones of blue was partly inspired by the death of Spanish painter Carlo Casagemas, a good friend of Picasso, who took his own life earlier that year.

Following Casagemas’ passing, Picasso moved into his rooms in the French capital and set up his studio there. 

Keen-eyed fans of Picasso will notice the artwork featuring on the wall in the background of Portrait of Mateu Fernández de Soto is one of Picasso’s memorial paintings depicting the burial of Casamegas.

A hidden painting of a mystery woman has been found lurking beneath Portrait of Mateu Fernández de Soto, one of Pablo Picasso’s earliest works from his Blue Period

Conservators from The Courtauld Institute of Art in London made the incredible discovery after using specialist x-ray imaging on the 1901 painting

The painting, which was completed in 1901 while Picasso was aged just 19, depicts his Spanish sculptor friend who was living in Paris with him at the time. Pictured: The artist in the 1920s

But experts are now equally excited by what lies beneath the oil painting on canvas.

Likely created just a few months earlier, the portrait of the woman shows a seated figure wearing a distinctive chignon hairstyle, which was fashionable in Paris at the time.  

The form of her head, curved shoulders and fingers can also clearly be seen. 

Art specialists have pointed to similarities between the figure and several paintings of seated women that Picasso made that year, such as Absinthe Drinker in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia, and Woman with Crossed Arms, on display at the Kunstmuseum in Basel, Switzerland. 

Some speculate Picasso had started out the painting in more of an Impressionistic style, as seen in his artwork, Waiting, which hangs in the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, Spain. 

There is also evidence of a further head at a lower level in the painting, suggesting he may have started works many times over on the same canvas.

Picasso often reused his canvases, because he did not have the money to purchase new ones. 

But he also embraced the process of painting one work over another, resisting whitewashing old images in favour of beginning a new figure directly on top of an earlier one. 

At the time of completing the portrait, Picasso had begun moving away from colourful Impressionism towards what experts describe as ‘a distinctly more melancholy artistic style’ known as his Blue Period

Art specialists have pointed to similarities between the hidden figure and several paintings of seated women that Picasso made that year, such as Absinthe Drinker (right) and Woman with Crossed Arms (left)

Some speculate Picasso had started out the painting in more of an Impressionistic style, as seen in his artwork, Waiting, which hangs in the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, Spain

Hidden images have previously been found beneath Picasso’s artworks.

In 2023, conservators working with the Guggenheim Museum in New York uncovered a small dog hidden beneath the painted surface of Le Moulin de la Galette.

Meanwhile, in 2020 a secret Picasso sketch was found hidden beneath one of his famous artworks after experts from the Art Institute of Chicago used X-ray scans to examine wrinkles on the canvas.

The drawing, which appears to show a pitcher, cup and newspaper resting on a chair, was scribbled on the back of the canvas used for his 1922 piece Still Life.

An analysis of a painting in 2018 revealed a landscape in a completely different style to Picasso’s lying underneath his 1902 oil painting The Crouching Beggar (La Misereuse Accroupie), suggesting he had painted over another artist’s work. 

Art experts also found a bow-tied man with his face resting on his hand hidden beneath Picasso’s artwork, The Blue Room, in 2014.

Kerstin Richter, director of the Oskar Reinhart Collection ‘Am Römerholz,’ which has loaned the painting for the exhibition, said: ‘This is truly a picture of great complexity, revealing its secrets over the years. 

‘When Oskar Reinhart acquired it in 1935, it was simply considered to be a portrait of an unknown woodcarver. 

The Guggenheim’s senior painting conservator, Julie Barten, helped uncover a small dog hidden beneath the painted surface of Picasso’s artwork Le Moulin de la Galette

A hidden Picasso sketch (pictured) uncovered in 2020 appears to show a large pitcher, cup and newspaper all resting on a chair

The drawing was scribbled on the back of the canvas used for his 1922 abstract piece Still Life 

An analysis of a painting in 2018 revealed a landscape in a completely different style to Picasso’s lying underneath his 1902 oil painting The Crouching Beggar (La Misereuse Accroupie), suggesting he had painted over another artist’s work 

This is a scan of the landscape hidden beneath the visible surface

‘Now we not only know the personality depicted, his significance in Picasso’s life after the death of his closest friend, but we can also visualise the artistic development process of the young painter layer by layer.’

Barnaby Wright, deputy head of The Courtauld Gallery, said: ‘We have long suspected another painting lay behind the portrait of de Soto because the surface of the work has tell-tale marks and textures of something below. 

‘Picasso’s way of working to transform one image into another and to be a stylistic shapeshifter would become a defining feature of his art, which helped to make him one of the giant figures of art history. All that begins with a painting like this.’

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