“Young Woman Powdering Herself” by Georges Seurat
At first glance, the painting called “Young Woman Powdering Herself” seems like a straight-forward portrait of a woman putting on makeup. But when you look at the painting under an X-ray, it reveals that the flower in the top left corner used to contain a hidden self-portrait of Seurat. According to legend, a friend saw this original version, and told him that it looked very strange. So he took his friend’s advice, and painted over the flower. Another hidden secret about this painting is that the woman is actually Madeleine Knobloch, Seurat’s 20-year-old mistress. He had never tried to paint any other self-portraits into his paintings like that in the history of his work. So clearly, this was some sort of secret homage to their relationship.