Young Woman powdering Herself Seurat's Hidden Self Portrait

This work is the only major portrait painted by Georges Seurat, who died at the age of 31. It depicts his companion, Madeleine Knobloch, applying make-up. The theme of nature and artifice, represented by the use of cosmetics, is echoed in Seurat's distinctive technique, called ‘pointillism’. He applied a ‘skin’ of coloured dots to the surface of his work to animate it and create volume. Following newly formulated optical theories, he placed colours from opposite sides of the colour wheel — orange and blue, pink and green — next to each other for greater contrast.

In the frame above the sitter's head was once a mirror showing the reflection of Seurat at his easel. After being ridiculed by a friend, Seurat replaced it with a vase of flowers, painting over his only known self-portrait.

Detail from an infra-red scan taken at 17nm. showing the underlying image of the artist at his easel underneath the flowers.