‘A RARE medieval panel painting survived more than 500 years, enduring the Reformation and Civil War, after a quick-thinking owner recycled it into the “Ten Commandments,” it has been revealed.

    The painting, which depicts Judas betraying Jesus, dates from around 1460, and would originally have hung in all its glory in a local church.

    But with the Protestant Reformation, the dissolution of the monasteries and the stripping of the altars, it was at risk of being defaced or destroyed.

    The secret of its survival has now been uncovered by experts at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, after they took the back of the painting away to investigate and found 16th century amendment.

    It is now believed a contemporary helper could have turned the painting around, disguising its colorful front and converting the back into a simple list of the “Ten Commandments.”

    Described as “one of the rarest artworks of its type,” the painting is now going on show in Cambridge after being sold by previous owner the Church of St. Mary, Grafton Regis, Northamptonshire, Britain, to raise funds to fix its roof.

    Conservators at the Hamilton Kerr Institute have been able to restore it to its full glory after using x-ray, infra-red, ultraviolet, and pigment analysis to investigate and date it thoroughly.

    It is thought to be one of very few surviving examples from the period, after thousands of church paintings were destroyed in the 16th and 17th centuries.

    A 2013 exhibition at Tate estimated more than 90 percent of Britain’s religious art was lost in the 150 years after the Reformation.

    The painting in question was also at risk from devout Catholic parishioners, who are said to have scratched and gouged at the hated figure of Judas in other contemporary works.

    Entitled “The Kiss of Judas,” the bright oil painting depicts the moment of Christ’s betrayal by Judas Iscariot.

    The painting is on display in the Rothschild Gallery of medieval works in the Fitzwilliam Museum.

    (SD-Agencies)