Hidden meaning of Magritte uncovered as new image is found under painting | René Magritte

A painting by René Magritte has been discovered beneath another painting by the Belgian surrealist master – to the excitement of experts.

A portrait of a woman had been hidden under La Cinquième Saison (The Fifth Season), from 1943, now held in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (RMFAB) in Brussels. She was discovered using infrared reflectography.

The identity of the model is uncertain, but she resembles the artist’s wife and muse, Georgette. She was a saleswoman in an art supplies store, where Magritte bought his paints, and they married in 1922. At her death in 1986, she left seven paintings to RMFAB, including another portrait he painted of her in 1937.

The artist, who died in 1967, is revered for enigmatic compositions that play with reality and illusion. He placed everyday items in unusual and unsettling settings, juxtaposing objects such as bowler hats and apples. He would mislabel them to “make the most everyday objects shriek aloud”. His most famous painting depicts a pipe with the sentence “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (This is not a pipe), challenging the authority of both images and words.

He once said: “When one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question, ‘What does it mean?’ It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable.”

A new study of his paintings has been led by Catherine Defeyt, senior researcher at the University of Liège and RMFAB, and Francisca Vandepitte, senior curator of modern art at RMFAB.

La Cinquième Saison, painted in oil on a 50.5cm by 60cm canvas, depicts two bowler-hatted men – perhaps artists or collectors – holding framed paintings under their arms.

Defeyt said: “We consider Magritte did paint this [hidden] portrait, we have no doubt on that point.”

His reason for painting over it is unclear, but he reused canvases due to financial difficulties.

The discovery will be included in their forthcoming book, titled René Magritte: The Artist’s Materials, to be published by the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles in August.

In one passage, they note that a pale yellow under-layer in the section corresponding to the hair of the hidden woman indicates that she was blond: “In the same way, the bright red shade of the lips can be observed through the upper paint layer in the centre of the composition. Although she had brown hair, the facial oval, the nose and the hairdressing of the model are consistent with Georgette’s physiognomy.”

Dr Thomas Learner, head of science at the Getty Conservation Institute, said: “Although there have been plenty of times when the technical examination of artworks has revealed a second image beneath a painting’s surface, it is always exciting when a new example is discovered. In this case, the IR reflectography image is so clear and striking that it even raises the possibility of identifying the sitter.

“We are thrilled that Dr Defeyt and her colleagues agreed to publish their work on Magritte as one of Getty Publication’s Artist Materials series and hope that this finding helps generate further interest in the materials and processes of this fascinating artist.”