Hidden Beached Whale Revealed in Dutch Painting

"View of Scheveningen Sands," before and after conservators uncovered a beached whale in the painting.

(Image credit: Fitzwilliam Museum)

When art conservators in the United Kingdom were cleaning a 17th-century Dutch seascape, they found a surprise: an image of a beached whale that had been hidden for at least 150 years.

Until recently, the painting — "View of Scheveningen Sands," created by Hendrick van Anthonissen around 1641 — simply showed groups of people gathered on a beach in The Hague in the Netherlands.

The Fitzwilliam Museum acquired "View of Scheveningen Sands" in 1873 when a donor handed over several Dutch landscape paintings. There is no indication that anyone at that time knew the van Anthonissen painting originally featured a beached whale. It's not clear when or why someone decided the whale had to go, but an analysis of the paint used to cover up the animal suggests the alteration took place in the 18th or 19th century before the painting was donated.

"Today, we treat works of art as entities, but in the previous centuries, paintings were often elements of interior design that were adapted to fit certain spaces — or adjusted to suit changing tastes," Kuang explained in a statement. "It's possible that the whale was removed because the presence of a dead animal was considered offensive — or perhaps without the whale the picture was more marketable."

Megan has been writing for Live Science and Space.com since 2012. Her interests range from archaeology to space exploration, and she has a bachelor's degree in English and art history from New York University. Megan spent two years as a reporter on the national desk at NewsCore. She has watched dinosaur auctions, witnessed rocket launches, licked ancient pottery sherds in Cyprus and flown in zero gravity. Follow her on Twitter and Google+.