X-radiograph(s) of "Grace Spear" 

Curator: This is an X-radiograph of "Grace Spear." The original portrait was crafted by Joseph Badger, though the date is unknown. It's quite haunting, isn't it? Editor: It's like a ghost in the machine, a spectral residue. You see the layers of history and intervention laid bare. Curator: Exactly! The X-ray reveals the underpainting, the artist's process, pentimenti... it's as if we're witnessing the birth of the image. Editor: And the violence done to it. X-rays feel like an invasion, even in the service of art history. Consider the gaze we demand of women in art—it's always under scrutiny. Curator: That's a powerful reading. For me, it invites a quiet contemplation of time, decay, and the persistence of memory. Editor: A fascinating tension between revealing and obscuring, then. It leaves one pondering the nature of visibility itself. Curator: Indeed. A shadow play of light and history.