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Recent infrared studies have traced the evolution of the painting from a fashion show of wealthy idle elite to a more austere scientific interior, almost a makeshift laboratory! One inhabited by modest, serious, affectionately married scholars. Here an outrageous hat can be seen under the final painting's surface. It was originally the ostentatious centerpiece. The exact hat can be seen in the fashion pages surviving from that year. Also the walls were stripped bare in the final version. But even in its final altered state the painting was not allowed to be shown at the salon that year, for fear of riots in response to the depiction of hated aristocrats. It was already too late to save themselves. They might as well have worn the hats!