The Van Eyck brothers' famous polyptych "The Holy Lamb " will soon return to its place in a side chapel of the Ghent Cathedral following a "cure" in a Brussels "sanatorium" for old paintings.
When the last war broke out it was taken and hidden in France with other treasures of Belgian museums. In 1942 the Nazis found it in the Henry IV chateau at Pau and took it away. But in 1945 the liberating Americans found the painting in a salt mine at Alt Aussee, Bavaria, and sent it back to Ghent.
Three years later it was found that the painting's varnish was scaling off and that humidity infiltrating between the scales was causing a change in its colours.
On advice of the best known authorities a coat of beeswax was applied and the experts now say that the colours have recovered their brightness.