Dr. Louisa Smieska talks about using x-ray fluorescence to discover what was hiding beneath the surface of a 19th century painting. Exit from the Theater is in the collection of the The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. The painting has long been attributed to the French artist Honoré Daumier, but normal investigation techniques couldn’t penetrate its secrets. X-rays from the particle accelerator at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source revealed a painting hidden for 150 years.

See Exit from the Theater at the Nelson-Atkins Museum website: https://art.nelson-atkins.org/objects/29953/exit-from-the-theater

Louisa and her colleagues published their findings, and an article abstract is available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0026265X18313079

Additional information is online at: https://www.daumier.org/2019/09/08/technical-study-of-a-painting-attributed-to-honore-daumier/