The Painter Who Used Real Ghosts as Models

Episode 20 tells the eerie story of Adrian Valcourt, a 19th-century portrait painter who claimed the subjects of his paintings appeared in his studio late at night and silently posed until dawn. Many of the faces he painted were later identified as people who had died years earlier, some of whom had never been photographed. Whether coincidence, imagination, or something supernatural, Valcourt's paintings continue to unsettle viewers, suggesting he may have painted models who no longer belonged to the living world.