AI analysis casts doubt on Van Eyck paintings in Italian and US museums

Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata, on display in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. A near-identical painting is in the Royal Museums of Turin. Photograph: incamerastock/Alamy

An analysis of two paintings in museums in the US and Italy by the 15th-century Flemish artist Jan van Eyck has raised a profound question: what if neither were by Van Eyck?

Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata, the name given to near-identical unsigned paintings hanging in the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Royal Museums of Turin, represent two of the small number of surviving works by one of western art’s greatest masters, revered for his naturalistic portraits and religious subjects.