By Eleanor Harding PUBLISHED: 16:33 EST, 31 August 2012 | UPDATED: 17:49 EST, 31 August 2012 What's the best way to erase an ex-lover from your life? As Victorian artist William Holman Hunt found, painting over her is a good start. His portrait of this pre-Raphaelite beauty (main picture) did not always feature the steady gaze of this striking woman with dramatic brows and a tumble of auburn curls. The new beauty: Fanny Waugh's face in the finished portrait What lies beneath? A close inspection revealed the face of the artist's previous lover Previous occupier: The painting used to feature Annie Miller before she was painted over
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Secret revealed by an X-ray taken at Tate Britain
When she ended her affair with Hunt in 1859, the unfinished canvas lay untouched for years until @placeholder fell in love with Fanny Waugh – the woman who would become his wife.