Focus on Gioventù and analyze the A hidden painting.
A portable device, which works by X-ray fluorescence, allowed for an important revelation after being used in the Gioventú frame. Concealed under the young woman portrayed, a study was found for another screen by Visconti entitled Recompensa de São Sebastião (Reward of Saint Sebastian). The equipment that allowed this intriguing discovery was developed by the Brazilian researcher Cristiane Calza, during her doctorate, completed in 2007 at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. The system is able to identify the time when a painting was painted, the composition of colors used by the artist, the existence of later touches and even falsifications.Recompensa de São Sebastião, as well as Gioventù, was awarded an international exhibition, receiving the gold medal at the  Universal Exposition at Saint Louis, in the United States, in 1904. In X-ray images, the angel crowning laurels the San Sebastian tied to a tree appears even more clearly than the girl of Gioventù. The painter seems to have changed his mind after the study because, instead of laurels, in the finished picture the angel puts a halo on the saint's head.
Brazil Rio de Janeiro Universal Exposition at Saint Louis painter Federal University of Rio de Janeiro X-ray