Sunday’s Boston Globe features a Sebastian Smee piece on the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s restoration of Diego Velázquez’s portrait of Spanish King Philip IV.
Old canvas:
Restored canvas:
Inevitable conclusion:
Pinhead.
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lawwllz it looks like they just put it in photoshop and hit “auto levels.”
A further restoration would find that if you removed all the soot, the outfit King Phillip is wearing is really yellow with big orange polkadots!
Smee states that we are looking at the King from a low vantage point; it seems head-on (cue the “HeadOn” commercial) to me. But if he’s correct, that might explain the attribute. It may be necessary to consult an expert: Bill O’Reilly.
Cleaning doesn’t change the question of why such a long face.