![https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cristo_velato.jpg](https://www.futilitycloset.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/2018-01-25-folds-of-stone.jpg)
Giuseppe Sanmartino’s 1753 sculpture Veiled Christ is so convincing that for 200 years a legend circulated that an alchemist had transformed a real shroud into marble.
In fact a close examination shows that Sanmartino carved the whole work, shroud and all, from a single block of stone. Antonio Canova said he would give up 10 years of his own life to produce such a masterpiece.