Museum reattributes painting to Velazquez

updated 1:25 p.m. ET Sept. 10, 2009

NEW YORK - New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art has reattributed a painting in its collection to the 17th-century Spanish master Velazquez.

The museum had previously ascribed the portrait to the workshop of Velazquez, not to the artist himself.

The museum says it made the determination after "a technical examination and cleaning" of "Portrait of a Man."

The painting entered the museum's collection in 1949 as a work by Velazquez. It was demoted in 1979 after its authorship was questioned by a leading scholar. The museum says thick varnish and heavy retouching in a past restoration had concealed Velazquez's hallmark brushstrokes.

The painting shows a mustached man in his mid-thirties wearing a black doublet with a stiff white collar.

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