pentimento

American  

[pen-tuh-men-toh] / ˌpɛn təˈmɛn toʊ /

noun

Painting.

plural

pentimenti

1. the presence or emergence of earlier images, forms, or strokes that have been changed and painted over.

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pentimento British  

/ ˌpɛntɪˈmɛntəʊ /

noun

1. the revealing of a painting or part of a painting that has been covered over by a later painting

2. the part of a painting thus revealed

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Etymology

Origin of pentimento

1900–05; < Italian, equivalent to penti ( re ) to repent (< Latin paenitēre to regret) + -mento -ment

Example Sentences

The yellow title casts a grayish shadow within the turquoise, a pentimento whose sign of an earlier paint layer signals a stratum of history.

From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 1, 2022

There are holes drilled into the top and the pentimento outline of where the displaced sculpture once stood.

From Washington Post • Aug. 23, 2022

It's so common that art historians and conservators have a word for it: pentimento.

From Salon • Nov. 11, 2021

The pentimento of the teenage Blasey made her seem achingly vulnerable.

From New York Times • Sep. 29, 2018

The first baby Vincent is a pentimento, a ghostly image under the second Vincent's portrait, the picture of a child who might have been.

From "Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers" by Deborah Heiligman