‘Why Does This Lady Have a Fly on Her Head?’: This 15th-Century Painting Will Leave You Scratching Your Head

Take a look at the 15th-century painting “Portrait of a Woman From the Hofer Family,” and you’ll immediately spot an oddity. The work of an unknown artist, the German masterpiece contains a curious detail—a single fly on the subject’s realistically rendered full white veil. “Why does this lady have a fly on her head?” asks Francesca Whitlum-Cooper, the associate curator of London’s National Gallery, in a video. “What does that tell us about the tricks that artists play on us?” Explaining the work’s origins, Ms. Whitlum-Cooper goes on to describe how having your portrait painted at that time in history would have been “unimaginably expensive,” even for the very wealthy. It might only take place once or twice in such a person’s life and would entail dressing in your finest clothes in an effort to look as presentable as possible....