In 1974, barely a month after acquiring the Man of Sorrows, the Metropolitan Museum received the shocking news that the Courtauld Institute in London had just declared the painting to be a modern forgery. No museum is pleased by such news, and the panel was ultimately sent into storage, where it remained, unaccessioned and forgotton, for almost twenty years. In 1992 interest in it was revived, and the Man of Sorrows was put to further testing, with some surprising results.