AI Detects Mysterious Detail Hidden in Famous Raphael Masterpiece

[Judi Lynn]

19 April 2024
By DAVID NIELD



St Joseph in the Madonna della Rosa. (Museo Nacional del Prado)

Artificial intelligence (AI) can be trained to see details in images that escape the human eye. Now an AI neural network has identified something unusual about a face in a Raphael painting: It wasn't actually painted by Raphael

The face in question belongs to St Joseph, seen in the top left of the painting known as the Madonna della Rosa (or Madonna of the Rose).

Scholars have in fact long debated whether or not the painting is a Raphael original. While it requires diverse evidence to conclude an artwork's provenance, a newer method of analysis based on an AI algorithm has sided with those who think at least some of the strokes were at the hand of another artist.

Researchers from the UK and US developed a custom analysis algorithm based on the works that we know are the result of the Italian master's brushwork.

More:
https://www.sciencealert.com/ai-detects-mysterious-detail-hidden-in-famous-raphael-masterpiece



How 'Kilroy Was Here' Changed the World
https://www.livescience.com/7577-kilroy-changed-world.html

[shrike3]

1. An apprentice, perhaps? An assistant? I seem to remember the Dutch masters had assistants who might do much

of the painting. The "master" might behave more as a director than a hands-on artist. Raphael did the same?

[murielm99]

2. My thoughts exactly.

[Easterncedar]

3. Regarding Kilroy

The article said it died out by the 50s, but I recall seeing it, along with “Yankee go home” graffiti, in Western Europe in the 60s, when I was a tyke camping with my folks. I’m glad to know the history.