By Dalya Alberge
Publication Date: 2026-02-07 08:00:00
An analysis of two paintings by the 15th-century Flemish artist Jan van Eyck in museums in the United States and Italy has raised a profound question: What if neither were by Van Eyck?
Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata is the name given to nearly identical, unsigned paintings that hang in the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Royal Museums of Turin. They represent two of the few surviving works by one of Western art’s greatest masters, revered for his naturalistic portraits and religious themes.
The only problem is that neither version may actually be from his hand.
Scientific artificial intelligence tests on the paintings conducted by Art Recognition, a Swiss company that collaborates on research with Tilburg University in the Netherlands, failed to recognize any of Van Eyck’s brushstrokes. It concluded that the Philadelphia image was “91% negative” and the Turin version was “86% negative.”
