X-radiograph(s) of "Captain Tracy" 

Curator: Here we have an X-radiograph of "Captain Tracy", the film measures 14 x 17, and it's held in the collections of the Harvard Art Museums. Editor: It's ghostly, almost a spectral echo. You can make out the form, but it’s obscured. Like looking through time itself. Curator: The radiograph gives us a look beneath the surface, revealing the painting's material construction, which can tell us a lot about Greenwood's process. Editor: The image resonates with the symbols of power and status of the time. The wig, the coat, it is archetypal of the wealthy merchant class in pre-Revolutionary America. Curator: Seeing the materials and the method of production in this way really underscores the labor involved. Editor: Indeed, and the layers of meaning the portrait would have conveyed back then, are now partially obscured by the clinical gaze. Curator: So it's a work of art and a document of material history. Editor: A compelling reminder that images never truly stand still.