THE PAINT COVERED ITS BEAUTY
A few years ago when I lived in Poland we were at a local museum which had a beautiful sculpture of Mary holding Jesus. For years it stood on a street corner before the city decided to clean it up and restore it. Up to that point no one thought it was anything special but as they began to work on it the restorers discovered that it had been repainted 27 times and under those many layers was discovered a priceless masterpiece from the middle ages. The paint had covered its beauty.