An Expert Looked Closer At A 100-Year-Old Masterpiece And Found It Was Hiding An Astounding Secret

A man creeps through an Australian museum, a flashlight illuminating his path. In this eerily quiet space, there’s no one around but him. Suddenly, though, the man stops. Something has caught his eye in one of the paintings. And when he finally figures out what it is he’s looking at, the truth will completely stun the art world.

That room the man was exploring is in the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in Melbourne. And the picture he was examining is one of Australia’s most famous works of art. It’s been in the NGV since 1906, having been left to the museum by a charity all those years ago.

The man lurking around was not a thief. He was Michael Varcoe-Cocks, who works in the museum as its head of conservation. He’s an expert in paintings from the second half of the 19th century, meaning he can tell you a lot about the works on display. But even with his vast knowledge of art, Varcoe-Cocks couldn’t have predicted what he would find.

The picture that had caught Varcoe-Cocks’ eye? That was The Pioneer by the Australian artist Frederick McCubbin. The work – created in 1904 – is considered to be one of the great Australian paintings. The NGV even goes so far as to describe The Pioneer as a “masterpiece.”

Varcoe-Cocks is no doubt familiar with The Pioneer, and he’s likely run his eye over it many times over his years at the museum. But in the dark gallery, his flashlight caught a detail he’d never noticed before. And after the expert had gotten over his shock, he began to make sense of what he was seeing. Turns out that this McCubbin was crafty in more ways than one...

There’s nothing in McCubbin’s life story to suggest he was good at hiding secrets. In fact, at first, there was nothing to suggest he’d even become a great artist. As a young man in Melbourne, he had a series of ordinary jobs: working alongside his father, as a baker and as an attorney’s clerk. For a while, he even painted coaches. But art was his abiding passion, and so he somehow found the time to study at the NGV’s School of Design.

And when the 25-year-old McCubbin made his first sale, he was up and running. That led to several prizes, and by the middle of the 1880s he had begun the work that would make his name: depictions of the Australian bush. All this led McCubbin full circle. Towards the end of the decade, he headed up the school where he had learned to paint.

Then, as the century turned, McCubbin felt the pull of the bush. The painter took his family to live in Mount Macedon near Melbourne, and there he started to discover the different colors that the wilderness of the Macedon Ranges had to offer.

Ultimately, of course, this all led to The Pioneer. But McCubbin was a bit of a groundbreaker himself. You see, in the latter half of the 19th century, Australia had seen an influx of European artists, who had shared their knowledge of the “plein air” style of painting. They in turn sparked an Australian version of Impressionism that used the bush as inspiration – and McCubbin was one of the proponents of this trend.

The Australian Impressionists focused on tones that seemed native to Australia. They painted the barren, waterless soil, the forests of eucalyptus trees and the sand. And as Australia moved from British rule to becoming its own commonwealth, these artists captured a life that was disappearing as times changed.

It turned out that Mount Macedon was the perfect environment for McCubbin to do great work. Inspired by the bush, he created The Pioneer in 1904. And while it isn’t McCubbin’s only painting of the Australian countryside, it’s arguably one of his finest.

The Pioneer depicts the lives of a family of settlers, showing through its three panels the changes that they experience in the Victorian bush. And despite his reputation as an impressionist, McCubbin paints the clan with almost photographic realism.

In the left panel, the viewer can see a man and his spouse newly arrived in the bush. Australian settlers of the 1860s were allowed to snap up land in some of the colonies, and in this case it seems to be a patch of uncleared forest. McCubbin paints this in muted, fall tones.

The settler is kindling a fire in the background of the picture, near to where he has parked the wagon that brought them there. His wife, on the other hand? She’s in the foreground, and frankly she doesn’t look too happy! Perhaps she’s just thinking about the hard work that lies ahead for both of them.

But in the middle panel, it’s clear that some time has passed. There’s a third member of the family, you see, as the woman is cradling an infant. And the man can be seen sitting on a log that he must have cut – along with many others. Through the gap in the trees caused by this clearing, we can spy the family’s home.

In the right panel, though, we see that the clock has again been ticking. Now through the much larger gap in the trees, there’s a city. And in the foreground, a grown man is on his knees by a grave. Perhaps he is the infant, now a strapping young fellow. We don’t know whose grave it is, either, but neither the settler nor his wife is depicted here – which could tell us something.

And when you see The Pioneer as a whole, you may see why it’s been labeled a masterpiece. Not everyone liked it at the time it was created, though. In fact, it remained unsold for a while! But one of McCubbin’s friends had a solution: make the city in the last panel look like Melbourne. Once McCubbin had done that, the painting was bought.

As for the painting itself, you should know that it was created only a few years after Australia became a commonwealth. It could be seen, then, as showing pride in the legacy of the pioneers who had arrived on the nation’s shores. They had battled against the wild bush and built the thriving cities that even then were visible on Australia’s coast.

Even so, it’s possible to see a different story in The Pioneer. The settler woman in the first panel does not appear happy about her prospects. Perhaps that shows off the less appealing side of pioneering life. Basically, it’s hard. And that final frame? Maybe it’s suggesting that the settler’s son will soon leave his childhood home for the city.

Whatever McCubbin’s true intention, though, The Pioneer sits in the NGV, where it’s much loved by visitors. And when Varcoe-Cocks was walking through the deserted gallery room, checking that everything was okay, he found something else that elevates this artwork even further. There’s a strange figure behind all the paint – and it looks like McCubbin deliberately hid it.

It was the fall of 2020, and the museum was closed to the public when Varcoe-Cocks was wandering around in the darkness. Speaking to the Australian TV show Sunrise, he later explained, “I was doing the rounds during lockdown, walking around with a [flashlight] checking all of the paintings. [Then] I came past the very famous The Pioneer.” And what happened next set in train a series of events that would rock the Australian art world.

The beam of the conservation expert’s flashlight strayed over something that caught his eye. He described this to Sunrise as being “a form in the texture that didn’t relate to that final composition.” And it immediately sparked his curiosity. Just what in the heck was he looking at?

Well, it turned out that Varcoe-Cocks had access to X-rays of the painting made back in 2013. And while looking closely at these scans, he could see that there was something in The Pioneer he hadn’t noticed before. But even at this point, he couldn’t completely unravel the mystery.

The now-visible outline nagged at Varcoe-Cocks. He’d spotted it somewhere before, but where? Then he remembered. In a scrapbook that McCubbin had kept, there was a photo – small and colorless – of the painting Found. This work features a bushman alongside a child, and the art expert could have sworn that he had seen that image in The Pioneer.

Varcoe-Cocks told Sunrise, “I could see this big form of a bushman holding a little child, a limp figure, who has just been found in the bush.” Then the head of conservation realized that beneath The Pioneer, there was another masterpiece by McCubbin – previously lost for a century under a cloak of paint.

So, the next stage was for Varcoe-Cocks to confirm what he now believed. He told the Melbourne newspaper the Herald Sun, “I digitally overlaid this to that. It was a perfect match.” The expert added, “It’s always a remarkable and wonderful thing to solve an otherwise unsolved mystery.” We bet!

But the discovery is a bittersweet one. That hidden painting can’t actually be taken out of The Pioneer, as McCubbin created his masterpiece right on top of it. One of the benefits of oil paints is that they can be layered to change or hide details. And while that’s a good thing for artists, it’s a bummer for any folks wanting to see McCubbin’s lost work in its entirety.

McCubbin was by no means alone in creating new pieces on top of old ones. Pablo Picasso did exactly the same when he found that he didn’t have the money to buy fresh canvases. And it looks as though we’re still discovering the master’s secrets. In 2020 it was revealed that Picasso’s much-loved Cubist Still Life from 1922 covered an earlier still image in the neo-classical style.

For McCubbin, meanwhile, layering paint was just part of his process. He’d create a piece with a lot of detail and then daub more paint on top or rub it off until he felt the work was completed. That means McCubbin’s oeuvre features a lot of what is known as pentimenti, or remnants of earlier paintings.

But Varcoe-Cocks knew just how lucky he’d been to make his discovery. He said to the Herald Sun, “If I wasn’t walking through in the dark, with a [flashlight] on my own, I probably wouldn’t have had time to focus on it, make the connection and revisit the X-ray and to rediscover this little photo in a scrapbook we had in storage.”

That’s not the normal method for finding pentimenti. Experts usually uncover them through hi-tech methods such as infrared reflectography. This allows a greater amount of light to pass through any surface layer of paint and illuminate what lies beneath.

Tech proved really useful, too, when NGV art scientist Raye Collins was looking at another painting back in 2007. And yet again, it was another work by McCubbin. This one was called The Letter, and it was being displayed in the town of Ballarat.

The Letter shows a lady walking by a river while gazing at a note that she has in her hands – perhaps something from a lover. And Collins had been X-raying the art in the hope of uncovering some of McCubbin’s earlier work underneath. She was successful, too, spotting another still image beneath the paint.

The hidden likeness is thought to be something McCubbin painted as a student. Collins told the Australian newspaper The Courier-Mail, “We were very surprised to find this still [painting] underneath. It’s very significant; it helps us build this whole story about the painting, and the painting also tells us a lot about the National Gallery School.”

The X-ray revealed what could be two bowls and a basket, along with what is clearly a flower. Speaking about this to The Courier-Mail, Collins added, “This is good new information that really adds to people’s understanding. What is really interesting is that it’s completely different [from the visible painting].”

And McCubbin’s pentimenti were exposed again in 2015 when the Australian Synchrotron – which produces extremely bright light – shone on his The North Wind. Underneath the arid scene depicted in the 1888 masterpiece lies a different landscape, this time lush and green. It’s thought McCubbin may have made the change to reflect the imagined hardships of the settlers.

So, McCubbin definitely has form! Circling back to The Pioneer, though, Varcoe-Cocks would not say whether he believed his discovery would add to the monetary value of the painting. Not that this really matters, as it’s already worth millions of dollars. But the hidden image does add an extra dimension to the masterpiece. As Varcoe-Cocks told Sunrise, The Pioneer “culturally has many more layers to it now.”

It’s not that Found was worthless in its own right. In 1893 McCubbin showed the work at the Victorian Artists’ Society Exhibition, where it received praise from folks in attendance. But none of the people who liked it would pay what McCubbin was asking for. That explains why he eventually decided to put the canvas to new use.

Varcoe-Cocks certainly believes that’s what happened. He told Sky News that McCubbin hadn’t wanted to waste the canvas, and so he ultimately decided to paint The Pioneer on that same surface. Varcoe-Cocks added, “It became one idea. It merged into this really major epic sort of work of The Pioneer.”

And for the museum head, finding McCubbin’s lost painting did more than just help explain what had happened to Found. Varcoe-Cocks explained to the Herald Sun, “I started to realize the implications of what Found actually was. It was the origin of The Pioneer.” Now, he’ll never look at McCubbin’s work in the same way again.

You may never look at The Last Supper in the same way, either. There’s no doubt that it’s a special painting – a masterpiece, in fact – while its creator is one of the most celebrated and enigmatic artists in history. But could there be even more to Leonardo da Vinci’s work than this? Well, according to some, the classic mural could hold a clandestine message – or messages – that has eluded understanding for generations.

As one of the most famous and frequently discussed works in Western art, though, The Last Supper should really hold no secrets. After all, countless experts have pored over the painting in the centuries since its creation. Yet while The Last Supper has earned its place in history, many myths and legends have sprung up in its wake.

So, what does the painting itself reveal? Well, central to the work, of course, is Jesus Christ – the son of God according to the Christian religion. And Christ is surrounded in The Last Supper by his 12 apostles. As the Bible tells it, these were the 12 men who most closely followed the teachings of Jesus and who would advance his message after his crucifixion.

And for Christians and art lovers the world over, the scene portrayed in the painting is a powerful one. Conventional thought says that the work depicts the last supper of Jesus and the apostles before Judas’ ultimate betrayal and Christ’s subsequent crucifixion. This event, as set out in the four canonical Gospels, forms one of the most powerful foundations of Christian tradition and rite: the Eucharist, or Holy Communion.

But that seemingly isn’t the scene that Leonardo – the celebrated painter of the masterpiece – wishes to concentrate on, although its symbolism certainly exists within the painting. Instead, The Last Supper seemingly captures the moment when Jesus informs his closest followers that one of them will shortly betray him.

And the emotion that perhaps best sums up the expressions of those featured in the painting – other than Jesus himself, naturally – is consternation. Indeed, the apostles’ body language as they come to terms with Christ’s revelation suggests that this may be the most overt message portrayed in The Last Supper.

But the painting has arguably captivated some people because of what it doesn’t reveal rather than for what it does. There are those who believe the messages contained in the masterpiece go beyond conventional interpretations, in fact, and that these secrets in turn make profound statements about the story as reported in the Bible. Perhaps unsurprisingly, though, some of these theories are rather controversial in nature.

Let us begin with what we do know about The Last Supper, however. For starters, work on the future masterpiece began in around 1495, when Leonardo’s reputation was already established. Leonardo was born in Tuscany, Italy, in April 1452 and later educated in Florence by an artist named Andrea del Verrocchio. And as history tells us, he went on to become perhaps the greatest example of a polymath – or Renaissance man – that the world has ever seen.

Yes, Leonardo is not only credited as being one of the greatest painters in history, but he was also an inventor, mathematician, sculptor and astronomer – to name just a handful of his many accomplishments. Among the inventions to which Leonardo is accredited are the earliest known designs for a flying machine.

When it comes to Leonardo’s paintings, however, many were of a religious bent. Perhaps the first of his works that drew widespread acclaim was Baptism of Christ – his collaborative effort with Verrocchio. Other Christian-themed works followed before Leonardo was asked to create a mural for Milan’s Santa Maria delle Grazie convent. This in turn became The Last Supper, and to this day the painting can still be found in the refectory there.

And it certainly wasn’t unusual to depict the last meal of Christ and his disciples in works of art at the time. Pietro Perugino’s interpretation – which had been painted only a matter of years earlier in 1490 – even shares similarities with Leonardo’s masterpiece, although Perugino has the traitor, Judas, sitting on the opposite side of the table from the rest of the apostles. Other works from the period shared Leonardo’s placement of the diners, however.

Furthermore, Leonardo’s painting was based on events told in the Biblical Gospel of John. According to the gospel, a matter of days after Jesus and his disciples enter Jerusalem, an important meal is shared by the 13 central figures in the story. And during the course of this “last supper,” several important events are said to have occurred.

First of all, Jesus apparently predicted that one of his apostles will betray him to the people who will later come to arrest him. This is the scene that Leonardo portrays in The Last Supper, with the apostles seen to be reacting in dismay to the news that someone at the table will be disloyal to their Lord.

The second important event that is said to have taken place at the meal is the establishment of the Eucharist. This is the Christian rite of taking bread and wine as the representation of the body and blood of Christ. It’s a ritual that forms the basis of Holy Communion, or the Lord’s Supper, which is a sacrament still performed by most Christian denominations.

Thirdly, the Gospel of John claims that Jesus had yet another revelation in store: that the disciple Peter will deny knowing his Lord three times before the following morning’s sun has risen. And, understandably, this news again apparently causes consternation among the gathered apostles. However, it’s the prediction of betrayal that concerns Leonardo in his interpretation of the scene as set out in The Last Supper.

As that final gathering plays such an important part in the Christian religion, then, it’s unsurprising that Leonardo’s painting was far from the first to portray the event. But unlike other depictions of the last supper, Leonardo’s piece has become the focus of widespread debate, conspiracy theories, myths, legends and puzzles. So, does the master’s work really contain secret messages?

Well, many believe so, and there’s one theory in particular that has really grown in prominence in recent times. You see, Leonardo was known to paint male figures who could be seen as androgynous in nature – most notably in his works Bacchus and John the Baptist. And according to some, that’s also the case in The Last Supper.

Most markedly, there’s a fairly androgynous character situated to the left of Jesus as you look at the painting. And while most art historians and scholars claim that this figure is the disciple John, the gender of the person can easily be questioned owing to the length of the subject’s hair and their effeminate features.

As a result, it’s been claimed by some that this figure is in fact a woman. And if that’s true, then her identity becomes an even greater source of controversy. One of the most popular theories in this vein was used as part of the central theme in Dan Brown’s incredibly popular 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code.

As the novel’s title suggests, its premise is that the great polymath and artist planted hidden messages in his works of art. And Brown’s book claims these symbols apparently allude to the fact that Jesus was actually married to Mary Magdalene. It’s said, for example, that there’s a letter “M” featured in the center of the painting, with this apparently representing both Magdalene and the idea of marriage.

And Mary Magdalene is undeniably a key figure within Christian scripture. The close follower of Jesus was purportedly present at his crucifixion, for one, while she was also said to have been among the first to note his resurrection. As such, she’s become referred to as the “apostle to the apostles” among numerous denominations.

So, could Mary Magdalene have been the wife of Jesus? Well, most historians and religious scholars reject such a notion out of hand, as there is no strong evidence to suggest this was the case. In fact, the concepts raised in Dan Brown’s novel were actually just reworkings of earlier ideas that were based on the same premise.

There’s little doubt that Leonardo was a master of ambiguity, however, and his most famous painting takes open interpretation to the highest levels. La Gioconda, known in English as the Mona Lisa, portrays a woman with an enigmatic smirk upon her face that has intrigued viewers for centuries. The work is a particularly good example of Leonardo’s famous use of the technique of sfumato, which translates as blurred, soft or vague. It’s a shadowy effect that could perhaps apply to the meaning of Leonardo’s work as much as the artistic style itself.

Nonetheless, Leonardo expert Mario Taddei also rejects the theory as set out in Dan Brown’s novel. And central to Taddei’s position is the fact that Leonardo’s painting cannot stand alone in terms of what it depicts, as he was far from the first artist to interpret the scene set out in the Gospels.

“Before Leonardo da Vinci, there were hundreds of ‘Last Suppers,’ and when he painted The Last Supper he had to follow some rules,” Taddei told Smithsonian in July 2016. “These rules want to have the people in that position and with that smile so that people could recognize the apostles one by one.”

So, when it comes to the theory set out in The Da Vinci Code, Taddei is dismissive. “Is this John or Mary Magdalene?” he asked. “It’s a very easy question, but it’s a stupid question, because it must be John, because Leonardo had to copy the last suppers before him, and John looks like a woman.”

But that doesn’t mean Taddei dismisses the idea of a hidden message in the work of art – far from it, in fact. Instead, though, Taddei believes that Leonardo was trying to make a less overt statement in his painting – one that centers on the concept of using halos.

In the period in which The Last Supper was created, you see, it was the done thing to include halos around any depictions of Jesus and his apostles – aside from Judas. These features were naturally intended to imply that these people were divine, or at least holy. And as The Last Supper was produced in a devout era, it’s somewhat of a surprise to see Leonardo break with the contemporary tradition of including any halos.

So, Taddei believes the omission of halos was in itself Leonardo’s real message – and the decision was itself a potentially controversial one. “I believe that Leonardo never put the halos because he thinks that those people are common people. And this is the true secret of Leonardo,” Taddei explained. “There is no extra-terrestrial or supernatural object inside The Last Supper. Leonardo wants to tell us that the 13 men are simple men, and this is something much more powerful.”

Even discounting the Mary Magdalene suggestion, though, it seems that there could be yet more messages hidden within The Last Supper. There’s one theory, for example, that relates to the numbering system used in Leonardo’s groupings of the diners in the painting. And there are two bands of three apostles on each side of Jesus, meaning the placement can be interpreted as 3,3,1,3,3.

What’s more, if Taddei’s interpretation of the painting is accurate, then Leonardo was seemingly setting himself out as a religious sceptic – which would have been hugely controversial at the time. Undoubtedly, the artist was a man of science, and that didn’t necessarily tally with religious theory. Plus, if – as speculated – Leonardo was gay, that also would have placed him outside of heaven according to beliefs of the period. But what’s the relationship between these facts and the apparent 3,3,1,3,3 ratio?

Well, according to one theory, the answer lies in Lamentations 3:31-3 – with the chapter and verse numbers all neatly tallying with the numerical ratio of the people depicted in the painting. And this particular passage from the Old Testament begins, “For no one is cast off from the Lord forever.” Could this have been Leonardo predicting his own salvation?

Whatever your take on that particular theory, though, it’s arguably not the most obscure secret allegedly held within the brush-strokes of The Last Supper. Nor is the myth that the human models used for Jesus and Judas were one and the same person – although that particular hypothesis does make for a fascinating allegory about sin.

One version of that tale claims that Leonardo identified a young man who possessed all the facial characteristics the painter was looking for in his depiction of Jesus. Then years later, as the story goes, The Last Supper was nearly complete but for the face of Judas. So, seeking a suitably sinister subject to base his interpretation on, Leonardo supposedly went to a local prison and sought out a prisoner. It was only after completing the picture, however, that the artist discovered the models for Jesus and Judas were in fact one and the same man – or so legend has it, anyway.

Sadly, though, that particular story is too full of holes to be accurate. The purported timeline doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, for one, as the painting was reported to have been completed in a four- or five-year period at most. But then there’s yet another theory about The Last Supper – and it’s one that seemingly contradicts the suggestions that Leonardo was somehow a non-believer.

Specifically, it’s claimed that the grand master included musical notes in the picture. And, on the surface, that’s not completely beyond the realms of possibility; Leonardo was also a musician and instrument-maker, after all. The potential for yet another secret piqued the curiosity of Giovanni Maria Pala, too, and Pala consequently began looking into the possibility that there was a hidden musical composition included in the work.

Pala even found something intriguing after he transposed musical staff lines over The Last Supper and used particular religious symbols such as the bread and the hands to identify notes. But the composition only truly made sense when the Italian realized that the score had to be read in Leonardo’s distinctive method of writing: right to left.

The result is a 40-second piece of music that Pala has described as a hymn to God. He also suggests that the pipe organ – used ubiquitously in Leonardo’s day for religious music – delivers the composition to best effect. And Pala has even recorded the tune he’s interpreted from The Last Supper as well as detailing the process in his book La Musica Celata, which translates as The Hidden Music.

In addition, Pala believes that his findings point to a rather different version of Leonardo than those put forward by some of the other theories relating to The Last Supper. “A new figure emerges. [Leonardo] wasn’t a heretic like some believe. What emerges is a man who believes – a man who really believes in God,” Pala told the Associated Press in November 2007.

Whatever the truth, though, perhaps The Last Supper’s true genius lies in the way in which it still captivates viewers all these centuries later. And thanks to its beautifully crafted figures, expert use of perspective and clever inclusion of apparent symbolism, the masterpiece still possesses the capacity to create endless debate, too.