Cannibalised Magritte masterpiece not to be restored

It was in the Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery that researchers tracked down the third panel. Magritte had painted the work featuring two female nudes in 1927. For eight decades the whereabouts of the work remained a mystery until researchers discovered that the artist had cannibalised his own work and used the canvas to paint something different. This something difference was "La condition humaine".

The Norwich Castle Museum curator has announced that the original work will not be restored: "It's impossible to restore the work that has been painted over without destroying "La condition humaine".

For many years "La pose enchantée" only existed as a photograph. In 2013 a first of the four panels was discovered in the MoMa in New York where the canvas had been used to paint "Le portrait". A second panel was found under "Le modèle rouge" in Stockholm's Moderna Museet. The art world is still on the look-out for the fourth panel.