Can you imagine using artificial intelligence to find a lost work of art?
This is the case of the panel Procession of Mount Gargano by Nicolás Francés. Once located in a church in Spain, it seemingly disappeared and wasn't seen for decades.
But new AI technologies helped locate it—it was across the Atlantic Ocean in a museum in Springfield, Massachusetts.
The work was part of a family of four Gothic panels. All had been sold, but this last one had gone missing.
JAIME GALLEGO BOYANO
Fundación ZamorArte
We managed to get a photograph, a negative from 1960, by José Gudiol Ricard, who I mentioned earlier, who had photographed all four panels of San Miguel. Then, using that negative and something as simple as Google Lens, which combines artificial intelligence patterns, we put the panel into Google Lens, so to speak—the black-and-white panel we had from 1960. And it gave us two exact matches, which is Google Lens. Two matches because people who had visited the Springfield museum, where the panel is located, had taken a photo and uploaded it to the internet.
According to the ZamorArte Foundation—which is responsible for managing and promoting the heritage of the Diocese of Zamora—the panel by Francés was the first lost work of art to be found thanks to the capability of AI.
Like the famous Mona Lisa, this panel passed through several hands, private owners and even museums. Finding it was quite the odyssey for the foundation.
They are now in contact with the Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum in Springfield to obtain all possible information. Additionally, they say it would be a dream for everyone to hold a temporary exhibition in Zamora, the region where this work originated.
JAIME GALLEGO BOYANO
Fundación ZamorArte
For me, it would be a dream. But of course, you have to look at the possibilities, because in the end, even a temporary exhibition costs money—for insurance, for transport—they have to travel very carefully. They cannot be moved just any way. But of course, we would all like that, when the future Museum of San Pedro is inaugurated, these panels are there, because this is also attracting a lot of attention.
Managing the heritage of an entire Diocese is no easy task, and even more so in rural areas, which—due to the passage of time and dwindling populations—gradually lost their churches and material possessions, art included.
DCG
