A copy of The Raft of the Medusa was mistaken for another work

A reduced copy of The Raft of the Medusa, painted by George Cooke, was acquired in 1862 by the New-York Historical Society. This institution made the mistake of wrongly attributing it to another artist, the painter Gilbert Stuart. The painting thus remained invisible to the public until 2006, the year when an investigation led by a teacher from the University of Delaware restored the truth.