OUR Pablo Picasso in 1900, when he was 19, he created the Moulin de la Galette, one of his early masterpieces.

The painting depicts a lively scene in the space of the same name – the famous Parisian ballroom, which was also painted by other artists, such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Couples are dancing in beautiful hats, while three figures are seated at a table in the foreground.

But there was a fourth and four-legged witness on the table, which was then covered in dark paint, discovered by Guggenheim scientists in collaboration with specialists from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

Researchers in the course of a technical analysis of the painting 123 years after its creation identified the dog. Using X-ray fluorescence, which displays the chemical components of the painting (such as pigments), the restorers were able to recreate the dog as it was originally in the painting.

Museum discovers hidden dog in 100-year-old Picasso painting https://t.co/nClBAZRLCV pic.twitter.com/9UXZRV9nCj

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“I found it interesting that (Picasso) painted over this dog in a hurry,” Julie Barten, curator of paintings at the Guggenheim, told CNN.

The museum noted that the dog is very similar to the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. Although Barten cannot say exactly why Picasso decided to remove the dog from the scene, she suggested that her presence may have detracted from the rest of the painting.

Megan Fontanella, curator at the Guggenheim Museum, said she was “surprised and delighted” to find the dog hidden in the painting. “When we start to analyze the painting,” he said, “we didn’t know that we would find something so interesting.”

Although art historians were surprised by the find, they emphasized that it was not uncommon for Picasso to leave “hidden images.” “We know that Picasso did this in his early work,” said Megan Fontanella. The hidden hand, for example, was discovered a few years ago in Picasso’s La Miséreuse accroupie.

The painting is in the Guggenheim Museum in New York, as part of an exhibition dedicated to the years of the famous painter’s work in Paris.

According to CNN, New York Times