Maria Shriver buffed out of Arnold Schwarzenegger's official portrait

Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger commissioned his official portrait years ago, while he was still in office. But when he unveiled the portrait in the state's capitol building this week, some keen-eyed observers noticed a small but significant alteration.

In the original photo, Schwarzenegger was depicted wearing a lapel pin bearing the face of his wife, Maria Shriver.

"It was actually a cute gesture when he had it done," Clay Russell, a former aide to the governor, told the LA Times.

But on Monday, at Schwarzenegger's big reveal, there was no lapel pin, no smiling Shriver. Instead, there was a blue smudge on the governor's lapel where the pin used to be.

Schwarzenegger and Shriver split in 2010 following Shriver's discovery that her husband of 25 years had fathered a child with the family's maid.

"It's too bad they couldn't remove it without creating a smudge that got a lot of attention," Russell said of the pin featuring Shriver's face.

For all the fuss it created, the unveiling may clear up at least one small mystery, though. The man behind the portrait, Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein, teased "one little interesting detail" about his work before it was unveiled during an interview with Barbara Gasser of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

According to the San Francisco Gate, Helnwein said he could not give any further information about the detail, "because I am not allowed to tell, but it was very important and meaningful to the governor."