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Official Bill Clinton portrait contains sly reference to Monica Lewinsky

Can you spot the artful mention to Monica Lewinsky in this portrait of Bill Clinton?
Official portrait of Bill Clinton.

It’s not easy and then, when you see it, you can’t un-see it.

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This portrait is an official one of the former president. It hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC and it was painted by famed portrait artist, Nelson Shanks, 77, who has also painted Princess Diana, and British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher.

National Portrait Gallery/Nelson Shanks.

Shanks, who is from Pennsylvania, is famous for including sly references in his works, but he denied any mischief-making when this portrait first went up, and for a long time, nobody noticed anything.

But Shanks has now told his local news website, Philly.com, that he included a reference to Monica in the painting.

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Nelson told the website that Clinton was ‘the most famous liar of all time’ whose affair with a young intern left a shadow over the White House.

Bill Clinton with Monica Lewinsky in the White House in 1998.

So now, if you look to the left of the picture, do you see the shadow of a dress?

That is a reference to the famous blue dress that Clinton left a DNA stain on, undoing his claim that he’d never had sex with ‘that woman, Monica Lewinsky.’

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The affair left a stain on Clinton’s record, too and Monica has likewise spent the best part of two decades trying to live the scandal down.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton – the woman scorned, who went on to become Secretary of State in the Obama administration – is preparing to announce her second run for the White House, with the Wall Street Journal today reporting that an announcement may come in April.

The election will be held in 2016.

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