There’s a dog hiding in this Pablo Picasso painting – once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee it

The buzz of bohemian Paris freezes in an instant, men and women in their finery dance the night away at Le Moulin de la Galette.

Pablo Picasso was only 19 years old when he ventured into the famous dance hall on the site of a former windmill, in the brushstrokes of his hero Toulouse-Lautrec.

His 1900 painting, of the same name as Montmartre’s Nightclub, shows virtually nothing of Picasso’s abstract genius that would make him one of the world’s most famous artists.

But before the painting could go on display at New York’s Guggenheim, recent research and extensive restoration have revealed a secret little character hiding among the grinning faces.

A small King Charles spaniel was discovered painted in the original image but later painted over. It can still be found…

The painting is on display until August 6 and is part of a 10-part exhibition ‘Young Picasso in Paris’, which showcases some of the Spanish artist’s early work while living in France.

But before the exhibit, the Guggenheim teamed up with experts from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. to reveal the dog’s figure.

They restored the painting by removing dirt and varnish, revealing unnoticed subtleties.

Curators then managed to generate a lively guest at one of the tables, which was covered in a large strip of dark paint.

They did this using X-ray fluorescence, a technical imaging technique that maps the chemical elements in a paint.

Julie Barten, restorer of paintings at the Guggenheim, said in an interview that the painting had undergone a whole year of treatment.

So, can you spot the King Charles spaniel? If not, we’ll give you a hint…

The animal is detailed in the lower left corner of the painting – with a cute red bow.

And while experts needed an x-ray to see it… once you know where it is, you won’t be able to look at this painting the same way again.

Detailed from the bottom left corner of Picasso’s ‘Le Moulin de la Galette’, the dog can be found. Imaging and restoration revealed a small dog that the artist had painted over

Recent research and extensive restoration of the painting was recently done for the newly opened Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Restorers managed to generate a lively guest at one of the painting’s tables, which was covered in dark paint

Julie Barten, senior painting curator at the Guggenheim Museum, told Reuters she had always had “a strong sense that there was something underneath.”

She added: ‘What we know is that in many cases Picasso painted aspects of the composition and then erased and transformed them into other elements of composition. This was really part of his practice.’

But it is not uncommon for Picasso to leave such Easter eggs in his artwork.

X-rays revealed that Picasso painted over another work to create one of his masterpieces. Curators in Canada (right) noticed unusual textures of La Misereuse Accroupie (The Crouching Beggar, left) when they received it for display

Researchers in 2020 also discovered a hidden painting beneath Picasso’s Still Life, 1922, when they found a black and white infrared image of the back of the canvas

A few years ago, for example, a hidden arm was exposed in Picasso’s ‘La Miséreuse accroupie’.

In 2018, after rotating the work 90 degrees to the right, an international team of scientists used multiple modes of light to reveal details hidden beneath the work’s visible surface.

And in 2020, researchers discovered a hidden painting under “Picasso’s Still Life.”

The cubist representation of a guitar, wine bottle and compote masks a very special still life.

In contrast to the grid-like design of the 1922 painting, the work was actually painted in a neoclassical style, according to findings published in the journal SN Applied Sciences revealed.

A black and white infrared image of the back of the canvas reveals shadowy outlines of a pitcher and a mug, as both items rest on an ornate chair.