One picture, seven search results

What Mali started with

A square image of an old woman in a tall black hat and a patterned shawl, walking into a chapel full of people. The image is cropped: the left-hand side of the painting, including a clock on the wall, has been cut off. No artist's name. The caption says:

“Welsh chapel painting with the devil hidden in it, painted 1911.”

Result 1 — a social media post (invented)

@hiraeth_aesthetics · 48,200 likes · posted 3 years ago

“This painting was BANNED in Wales because the artist hid the devil in the old woman's shawl to shame her for showing off at chapel. Painted 1911. Look at her left arm… can you see him? Follow for more hidden secrets in art.”

No artist's name, no link, no source. The image is the same square crop Mali has.

Result 2 — an online print shop (invented)

WallArtHub · “Salem — Welsh Chapel Oil Painting by S. C. Vosper, 1908. Premium canvas print from £24.99. Free UK delivery.”

At the bottom of the page: “© WallArtHub 2024. All rights reserved. Images may not be copied.” The picture is the full painting, but its colours are much brighter and more orange than in any other copy.

Result 3 — National Museums Liverpool, collection page (real page, summarised)

liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/artifact/salem · Title: Salem · Object number: LL 3446 (the “LL” stands for the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, which is part of National Museums Liverpool)

• Vosper painted Salem while visiting Llanbedr, near Harlech, in 1908. It shows the inside of the Baptist chapel Salem, Cefncymerau, built in 1850. The clock shows it is just before 10 o'clock.
• Local people sat for him at sixpence an hour. The shawl was borrowed from the vicarage in Harlech.
• William Hesketh Lever bought the picture in 1909 and used it as a promotional print for Sunlight Soap, so copies spread into homes all over Britain.
• On the devil: it has been suggested that a devil's face is hidden in the shawl, but the page quotes a 1940 letter from Vosper to the gallery's curator: people had asked “if this was deliberate on my part, of course it was not!”
• “There is a second, half-size version of this subject on loan to the National Museum of Wales.” The page does not say when that sentence was written.

Result 4 — National Library of Wales, press release (real page, summarised)

library.wales · “Safeguarding Salem for the Nation” · dated 10 October 2019

• The Library announces that it has bought the Salem painting on behalf of the nation.
• The work it bought was “painted in 1909” and is “one of two versions painted by Vosper”. The first version was bought by William Hesketh Lever and used to advertise Sunlight Soap.
• This second version was painted for the artist's brother-in-law, Frank James. The Library plans to show it in Aberystwyth and take it into schools.
• The artist is named as Sydney Curnow Vosper. (The Library's own education page about the painting spells it Sidney, and calls the work a watercolour.)

Result 5 — Wikipedia, “Salem (painting)” (real page, summarised)

• Painted in 1908 by the English artist Sydney Curnow Vosper. Shown at the Royal Academy in London in 1909, where Lever bought it for £105. It is on display at the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight.
• The central figure is Siân Owen, then aged 71. The devil in the shawl is “most commonly considered an example of pareidolia” — seeing faces in random patterns.
• A second, slightly different version painted in 1909 for Frank Treharne James came to light on an S4C programme in 1988. On 10 October 2019 the National Library of Wales announced it had bought it.
• Every paragraph has numbered footnotes linking to the books and articles it is based on. Anyone can edit the page.

Result 6 — an AI chatbot answer (invented)

Mali typed “who painted the Welsh chapel painting with the devil in it”. The answer came back in two seconds:

“That painting is Salem, an oil painting by the Welsh artist Sydney Vosper, painted in 1908. It hangs in National Museum Cardiff, where you can see it for free.”

No sources were listed.

Result 7 — a reverse image search (invented example of what you might see)

Mali uploaded her cropped image to a reverse image search tool. It returned:

• Pages with matching images: about 1,200, including a museum collection page, Wikipedia, several print shops and dozens of social media posts.
• Largest copy found: the full, uncropped painting, with the clock and all eight figures, on a museum website.
• Visually similar: two slightly different versions of the same scene.
• The tool does not say which copy is the original, or which page is the most reliable. That is still Mali's job.