WASHINGTON - In 1901, Pablo Picasso was at a pivotal moment in his career. He was experimenting to find his own unique style. At just 19 years old, he was living in Paris, painting furiously and dirt poor. It wasn't unusual for him to take one canvas and reuse it to paint a fresh idea.

Now scientists and art experts say they've found a hidden painting from that time period. It was lying beneath the surface of one of Picasso's earliest important paintings, "The Blue Room." Using infrared technology, they have uncovered a hidden portrait of a bow-tied man with his face resting on his hand.

Now the question that conservators at The Phillips Collection in Washington hope to answer is simply: Who is he?

It's a mystery that's fueling new research about the painting. "The Blue Room" was made early in Picasso's career while he was working in Paris, at the start of his distinctive blue period of sad subjects.

Curators and conservators revealed the discovery of the painting for the first time to The Associated Press last week.

What's That Fuzzy Image?

"When he had an idea, you know, he just had to get it down and realize it," Phillips curator Susan Behrends Frank told the AP. The painting is part of The Phillips Collection. Frank described how Picasso had hurriedly painted "The Blue Room" over another complete picture. "He could not afford to acquire new canvases every time he had an idea. He worked sometimes on cardboard because canvas was so much more expensive."

Experts long suspected there might be something under the surface of "The Blue Room." Some brushstrokes on the piece clearly don't match the composition that shows a woman bathing in Picasso's studio.

A conservator noted the odd brushstrokes in a 1954 letter. It wasn't until the 1990s that an X-ray of the painting first revealed a fuzzy image of something under the picture. It wasn't clear, though, that it was a portrait of a man.

In 2008, better technology was able to show details for the first time. A man's bearded face appeared, resting on his hand with three rings on his fingers. He's dressed in a jacket and bow tie, painted in a vertical composition.

"It's really one of those moments that really makes what you do special," said Patricia Favero. Favero is the conservator at The Phillips Collection who pieced together the best image yet of the man's face.

"The second reaction was, 'Well, who is it?' We're still working on answering that question."

Investigating An Art Mystery

Scholars have decided that it was not a self-portrait. One possible figure is the Paris art dealer Ambroise Vollard. Vollard hosted Picasso's first show in 1901. But there's no documentation and there are no clues left on the canvas, so the research continues.

Experts from The Phillips Collection, National Gallery of Art, and other museums and universities have worked to study the painting over the past five years. They have developed a clearer image of the mystery picture under the surface. A technical study confirmed further information about it. The hidden portrait is a work the Spanish artist likely painted just before "The Blue Room," curators said.

Since the portrait was discovered, conservators have been using other technology to scan the painting for more clues. Favero has been collaborating with other experts to scan the painting to try to identify and map the colors of the hidden work. They would like to recreate a digital image approximating the colors Picasso used.

Curators are planning the first exhibit focused on "The Blue Room" for 2017. It will examine the discovery of the man's portrait beneath the painting, as well as other Picasso works and his engagement with other artists.

For now, "The Blue Room" is in South Korea as part of a tour.

Mustached Man, Meet Bow-Tied Man

Hidden pictures have been found under other important Picasso paintings. A technical study of "La Vie" revealed Picasso changed the painting's composition significantly. And conservators found a portrait of a mustached man beneath Picasso's painting "Woman Ironing."

Dorothy Kosinski runs The Phillips Collection. She said new knowledge about Picasso and his process can be discovered through the high-tech efforts of museums working together.

"Our audiences are hungry for this. It's kind of detective work. It's giving them a doorway of access that I think enriches, maybe adds mystery, while allowing them to be part of a piecing together of a puzzle," she said. "The more we can understand, the greater our appreciation is of its significance in Picasso's life."