Israeli museum finds sketches hidden in Modigliani painting

Art historian Inna Berkowits holds her mobile phone with an image of an X-ray of Amedeo Modigliani’s painting ‘Nude with a Hat’ (Ariel Schalit/AP)

Curators at an Israeli museum have discovered three previously unknown sketches by celebrated 20th-century artist Amedeo Modigliani hiding beneath the surface of one of his paintings.

The unfinished works by Modigliani, an Italian-born artist who worked in Paris before his death in 1920, came to light after the canvas of “Nude with a Hat” at the University of Haifa’s Hecht Museum was X-rayed as part of a sweeping forensic study of his work for an upcoming exhibit in Philadelphia.