Goya’s Secret Self-Portrait

Siri Hustvedt was as surprised as anyone when she realized that he had discovered an apparently unknown self-portrait of Goya hidden in the corner of on of the artist’s best-known works. The painting, titled “The Third of May,” depicts a bloody peasant massacre conducted by Napoleon’s soldiers, but a shadowy portion in the lower left of the canvas hides an unmistakable image of the artist. “It’s a simple rendering – large eyes, flat nose and open mouth, but it includes the artist’s signature leonine hair flowing out from around his jawline. I turned away, thinking I had really gone crazy. After a moment, I looked back. He was still there.”