[Miss Marple]

Is that the image on the tilma, or is it a painting?

[eastsider]

It appears to me to be a photograph of the image on the tilma. You can see the single thread running from top to bottom that holds the two halves of the tilma together (as you look at Mary's face, the line is just to the right).

One of the extraordinary qualities of the image is its sharp edges, despite the coarse weave of the tilma. Much of what appears in the photograph has been painted in -- e.g., the angel, the stars. In fact, as far as I know, infrared studies have shown that only the underlying image of Mary is original. It has not yet been determined what the medium is, but it doesn't saturate the tilma; rather, it floats above it like a photographic emulsion.