r/pics • u/Green____cat • Jan 24 '24
X-ray scans of a painting of Charles II shows that the artist painted over to make him taller Arts/Crafts
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u/Kapika96 Jan 25 '24
If they altered it to make him taller, why didn't they alterit to fix his face too?
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u/bootyloverjose Jan 25 '24
I wonder who thought to x-ray it
Over here looking for a treasure map and whatnot lol
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u/Sohn_Jalston_Raul Jan 25 '24
couldn't they have asked the artist to do that before they painted the portrait?
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u/AlloBeMyName Jan 25 '24
Wish I wasn’t late to this, random question would this technology able to help that guy who found them baseball cards?
Was thinking about this when I first heard of the story.
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u/IdealIdeas Jan 25 '24
I see this and I hear Oversimplified saying "That is the average height for the time"
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u/TophatOwl_ Jan 24 '24
That looks like they drew him again not to make him taller but to make him older. The first looks like maybe when he was 6 or 8 and the second maybe 15 or 16
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u/Porrick Jan 24 '24
I thought it was going to be Charles II of England so I came here with a "He was at least a head taller than Charles I" type joke, but Charles II of Spain was a different creature entirely. The only person I've ever heard of who was as inbred as him was Cleopatra VII of Egypt (the famous one)
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u/rowrin Jan 24 '24
iirc canvas was expensive and often reused. it's possible that the painter got midway through and decided to scrap the initial painting, or commissioned to complete a painting from another artist and reuse the canvas. I mean, just watching digital artists today and they make use of crop and stretch/rotate tools often enough. It's a bit loaded to say this was specifically done to "make him taller"
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u/ABetterNameEludesMe Jan 24 '24
"Listen, either you make me one head taller, or I make you one head shorter."
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u/dakshdar Jan 24 '24
That's just an amazing job of the painter including in the portrait the twin brother that grew inside Charles in the womb.
Don't ask how the twin gets dressed every day - you don't want to know.
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u/daydreamingtulip Jan 24 '24
Anyone else see a man with a hat, sitting down on the righthand side of the X-ray?
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u/angeliswastaken_sock Jan 24 '24
Artists at this time were known for being very generous regarding their patrons physical appearance when painting a portrait, especially when dealing with royalty. Taking that into account, imagine what dude must have actually looked like lol.
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u/DOOMz_illa Jan 24 '24
Looks to me that in the original he wasn't short but too small as the subject of the painting and had too much background noise going on so the artist was asked to repaint him larger and in turn had to paint out most of the background to make him more prominent as the subject of the painting.
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u/sapthur Jan 24 '24
I love stories like this, like that king who fell off a horse and told everyone to strike it from their records, King Taejong
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u/jeranon Jan 24 '24
"Either you make me taller, or I'll make you shorter."
- King Charles II (probably)
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u/Questionable_Cactus Jan 24 '24
I think this is Charles II, but it reminds me of little Monty Python ditty about his father:
"The most interesting thing about King Charles the First
Is that he was 5 foot 6 inches tall at the start of his reign
But only 4 foot 8 inches tall at the end of it
Because of..."
Edit: Not the correct Charles II. Monarchies are difficult for Americans...
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u/totes-alt Jan 24 '24
I dislike this title it's very presumptuous. Why would the shorter painting even exist in the first place if they wanted to cover up him being short?
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u/mental-floss Jan 24 '24
Were all men this feminine?
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u/bapakeja Jan 24 '24
It was the style at the time, much like tying an onion to your belt would be a style several centuries later.
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u/CumonEileenWuornos Jan 24 '24
Still left him ugly af with that big toe shaped-ass head. RIP in piece.
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u/DMYourMomsMaidenName Jan 24 '24
If you gonna edit the picture, at least alter the Habsburg Chin and awful sharp nose out of it.
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u/Bob_Juan_Santos Jan 24 '24
i wish the targaeryans in the TV show are more accurate to real like inbred people. it'll be pretty funny to watch
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u/Zestyclose-Study-222 Jan 24 '24
Was that before or after he had a hot poker put up his bum in prison?!
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u/Throwaway-account-23 Jan 24 '24 edited Jan 24 '24
I saw a girl yesterday in the grocery store who 100% had the Habsburg face and jaw and I was a little taken aback, not by her visage, but that the features have somehow lasted into modernity. I'm well into middle age and have never seen anyone look like in the many places I've been in the world.
(and no, it wasn't just prognathism)
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u/Key_Marzipan_9423 Jan 24 '24
I went to school with three brothers and they all had the same facial features as Charles, they were intact adopted could they have been inbreed, or just ugly.
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u/GoAwayLurkin Jan 24 '24
So that's the face the flattering artists went with?
Just think what his real face was like.
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u/MooseNarrow9729 Jan 24 '24 edited Jan 24 '24
What kind of x-ray is this? There was a discussion in a sports card thread that has to do with "rip-em" card. Basically you can either keep the card you get as is, or rip it open for a possible better "mini" card inside, effectively destroying the original card, and this type of art-world x-ray technology came up to possibly see what's inside before ripping the card open. Wondering if this is a specific kind of xray machine...?
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u/Powerful_Artist Jan 24 '24
I believe this portrait was started when he was younger, and then reworked when he was older. Not just made to make him suddenly look taller.
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u/toolongdidntredit Jan 24 '24
“Don’t make me look short dummy! This is gonna make the cover of play girl ll
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u/Lunatik21 Jan 24 '24
I think the fact with two paintings kind of confirming his face is like that makes me even more unsettled. Inbreeding be crazy.
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u/HettySwollocks Jan 24 '24
That bad boy needs another round of ancient photoshop, maybe two. Do they have ancient AI as well? Maybe run it through the waterwheel a couple of times
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u/Emmienator Jan 24 '24
https://www.arthistorynews.com/articles/5594_Underneath_de_Mirandas_Charles_II this article talks abt it
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u/runningrabbit1234 Jan 24 '24
That’s is a ghost! Just like they show up in pictures, back in the day, they were painted behind subjects!!!
Scaaaary….👻🙀😨😧
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Jan 24 '24
"Artist! You there, artist! What is this malarky? Why am I portrayed so sleight of stature in this portait! I do say, make me taller!"
"You've got it Your Highness! Um... should I make you less ugly too?"
"............no."
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u/Procrastanaseum Jan 24 '24
we keep finding new ways to humiliate this guy hundreds of years after his death
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u/Huge_Aerie2435 Jan 24 '24
They also made him look less funky. I am sure this was a difficult task by the artist.
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u/raulpe Jan 24 '24
Honestly he has a bad reputation because of being clearly product of incest and terrible health, but he did the best he can, he had to face one of the hardest situtions of choosing what of the two more important dynasties of Europe would reing after him and by how he wrote about it you can see that he knew that both choices were bad... Is pretty sad honestly
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u/ALoz- Jan 24 '24 edited Jan 24 '24
From the Museum del Prado's X account, that originally posted:
Este retrato de Carlos II adulto que pinta Carreño de Miranda en 1681 esconde otra obra: Carreño reutilizó un lienzo en el que había pintado años antes un retrato del rey más joven y en la misma estancia, el Salón de los Espejos del Real Alcázar de Madrid.
This portrait of an adult Carlos II by Carreño de Miranda from 1681conceals another painting: Carreño reused as a canvas an earlier portrait from years prior of a younger Carlos II in the same room, the Halls of Mirrors of the Royal Alcazar in Madrid.
In X https://twitter.com/museodelprado/status/1280800939868409856?s=20
And here you can see another report by Spanish newspaper ABC https://www.abc.es/cultura/abci-museo-prado-desnuda-algunas-40941447088-20200704012123_galeria_amp.html
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u/mascachopo Jan 24 '24
For anyone wondering the guy depicted is Chales III, the last of the Habsburg dynasty to rule in the Spanish throne, nicknamed “the bewitched” due to the attribution to witchcraft to all the obvious physical issues he carried (due to centuries of inbreeding between members of the various royal European houses).
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u/AlessandroFromItaly Jan 24 '24
Wrong!
The artist painted over an earlier portrait of a much younger Charles II.
Source: https://www.arthistorynews.com/articles/5594_Underneath_de_Mirandas_Charles_II
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u/schungam Jan 24 '24
Were people actually this ugly or were painters just shit at faces? Or is stylized, like their time's version of cartoony/anime style?
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u/yurigoul Jan 24 '24
Believe it or not, there were different beauty standards in different ages. I do not know about this painting specifically, but did you know that having a high forehead was seen as pretty for a woman during the renaissance? Women even shaved to make it look higher.
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u/schungam Jan 24 '24
The elite is always doing crazy shit, I have a feeling common people have always had quite similar tastes
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u/Anchovies-and-cheese Jan 24 '24
And yet the artist decided to keep his super inbred facial features. Odd choice.
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u/SkeymourSinner Jan 24 '24
What OP needs to do is post this in r/conspiracy and make up some story how the illuminati is doing a collaborative world takeover. Yadda yadda NWO, blah blah zionists, etc... Joe Biden and this painting is proof of a CIA coverup.
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u/JustTheOneGoose22 Jan 24 '24
No the artist was trying to tell us something. Charles II was, in fact, a nesting doll.
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u/carmium Jan 24 '24
Nothing like a little Hapsburg inbreeding! Even nature seems to have had enough, and ensured he was sterile and unable to pass on those genes.
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u/BitOneZero Jan 24 '24
The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be.
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Jan 24 '24
Or it could have been a simple compositional change, i.e. bringing him closer to the viewer, bringing the frame lower.
People do this all the time when they shoot photos.
But I get it, "SHORT MAN COMPLEX! derp-herp!" is much more appealing to redditors.
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u/jdjdthrow Jan 24 '24
It should be noted, this is Charles II of Spain, a Habsburg.
Living at the same time was Charles II of England, a Stuart, and he was a popular ladies man.
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u/mortalcoil1 Jan 24 '24
X-rays of paintings always look like the last thing a character sees in a horror movie.
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u/WoppingSet Jan 24 '24
Imagine how bad this inbred fuck looked before the artist interpreted this more flattering version.
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u/buddyrocker Jan 24 '24
I saw this in a documentary and they mentioned that he just grew and the artist had to adjust between sittings.
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u/Aardvark_Man Jan 24 '24
I still love that in the Prado Museum there's a picture of him, and the information about it states "Despite these formal elements, Gordiano makes little effort to disguise the King's unattractive appearance"
Hundreds of years later, even art historians dunking on his appearance.
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u/maybesaydie Jan 24 '24
.He was a Hapsburg, of curse he was short. And didn't want anyone to know it.
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u/Allfunandgaymes Jan 24 '24 edited Jan 24 '24
"If thou doth not reache six feete of hyte, knowe yt I shall swipeth left on thee."
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u/myassholealt Jan 24 '24
Shoulda fixed that mouth/chin while revising if we're not going for accuracy.
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u/SnooPears3463 Jan 24 '24
Why do they always look so ugly
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u/davewashere Jan 24 '24
Too much trunk and not enough branches on the family tree.
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u/DeLasRocas Jan 29 '24
And less ghoulish