Museum curators have made a surprise discovery in Vincent Van Gogh's Olive Trees: a grasshopper embedded in the paint.
The experts from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City discovered the insect - missing its abdomen and thorax - 128 years after it was painted.
Van Gogh was a famous proponent of plein air painting - the practice of painting outdoors - and it is thought the grasshopper unintentionally became part of the canvas while the artist was at work outside.
"Van Gogh worked outside in the elements," Julián Zugazagoitia, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art director, told the Kansas City Star. "And we know that he ... dealt with wind and dust, grass and trees, flies and grasshoppers."
![A small grasshopper found embedded in the thick paint in the lower foreground of Vincent van Gogh's 'Olive Trees' painting. Photo / AP](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/resizer/v2/NM6DZFIYZXFQM5C3N25W6TWUCM.jpg?auth=01735b59ad2308b570431569851588b3f62c919bce5bf0807a461e2275a239ba&width=16&height=23&quality=70&smart=true)