It appears to me that someone in the past, our past and not the painting's, redid the clouds or added the clouds! If you let your eyes view the
entire scene and focus on just the white portions it clearly shows the clouds as being a different color white than the white used with the rest of
the painting.
Was there damage that needed repairing?
Was there another image there that needed covering up?
Even the hem of the outfit of the angel closest to the face has an anomalous sort of rope-like shadowing next to his leg, as if it were the edge of
the cover-job!
The face is clearly there, I am shocked no one noticed it before, but really this looks like a very bad re-do on the paint as it does not match at
all!
edit on 11/6/2011 by Greensage because: error