Ritratto di una dama con la figlia

Titian began this portrait of a woman and a little girl around 1550 and never finished it. It was still in his studio when he died of the plague in 1576. Rather than leave it, someone, probably a pupil, painted it over into a religious scene, giving the mother wings to turn her into the archangel Raphael and reworking the daughter into the boy Tobias from the Bible. For centuries that is what people saw. Then in 1948 an X-ray found the two original faces hiding underneath, and a long restoration eventually brought the mother and child back. Who they were is still unknown, though many suspect Titian's mistress and their daughter.