See What the Authentic Mona Lisa Possible Appeared Like

If you wish to see the Mona Lisa in actual life, your first thought is probably not to move to the Pra­do. However accord­ing to a faculty of thought that has emerged in recent times, the Mona Lisa in Madrid has a higher declare to artis­tic religion­ful­ness than the one in Paris. That’s as a result of researchers have dis­cov­ered com­pelling evi­dence sug­gest­ing that what was lengthy con­sid­ered simply anoth­er copy of probably the most well-known paint­ing on the earth was­n’t made after Leonar­do had com­plet­ed the orig­i­nal, however con­cur­lease­ly with the orig­i­nal, prob­a­bly by one in every of his stu­dents. Over half a mil­len­ni­um, on this view, the Prado’s Mona Lisa has retained the col­ors and particulars the Lou­vre’s has misplaced, outcome­ing in its preser­va­tion of Leonar­do’s inten­tions right this moment.

Infrared pho­tog­ra­phy has even revealed, says the nar­ra­tor of the brand new Inspi­rag­gio video above, that each paint­ings “share the identical adjustments within the orig­i­nal sketch. For years, it has been identified that Leonar­do made small cor­rec­tions to the form of the Mona Lisa’s palms, alter­ments to the road of the eyes, and sub­tle mod­i­fi­ca­tions to the curve of the face,” the exact same cor­rec­tions that had been discovered within the new­ly examination­ined copy.

Not like oth­er copies, the Prado’s ver­sion makes use of “incred­i­bly expen­sive pig­ments” similar to lapis lazuli—imported from Afghanistan—for the sky. This solely turned evi­dent dur­ing the 2012 restora­tion, when the again­floor, lengthy hid­den underneath a thick lay­er of black, was remaining­ly uncov­ered.

There­after, the Pra­do Mona Lisa was exhib­it­ed alongside­facet the Mona Lisa on the Lou­vre in a tem­po­rary exhi­bi­tion. This gave the pub­lic the possibility to see each how sim­i­lar they appear, and the way dif­fer­ent. Although unde­ni­ably La Gio­con­da, the copy does­n’t appear fairly “proper,” largely as a result of it has­n’t dete­ri­o­rat­ed within the man­ner or to the diploma of the orig­i­nal. Leonar­do paint­ed it on a poplar wooden pan­el that has giv­en option to depend­much less small cracks, and the lay­ers of yel­low var­nish added over the cen­turies have darkish­ened to provide the entire picture a sepia tone. The outcome, after all, is the tex­ture and col­or­ing we’ve come to asso­ciate with the Mona Lisa by stop­much less expo­certain to her in pop­u­lar cul­ture, even when we’ve nev­er seen any ver­sion grasp­ing in any muse­um. If the Prado’s copy actual­ly does replicate Leonar­do’s orig­i­nal artis­tic choic­es, we will put not less than one sizzling­ly debat­ed mat­ter to relaxation: the woman actual­ly did have eye­brows.

Relat­ed con­tent:

What Makes Leonardo’s Mona Lisa a Nice Paint­ing?: An Expla­na­tion in 15 Min­utes

Did Leonar­do da Vin­ci Paint a First Mona Lisa Earlier than the Mona Lisa?

How Did the Mona Lisa Change into the World’s Most Well-known Paint­ing?: It’s Not What You Assume

Orig­i­nal Por­trait of the Mona Lisa Discovered Beneath the Paint Lay­ers of da Vinci’s Mas­ter­piece

An Immac­u­late Copy of Leonardo’s The Final Sup­per Dig­i­tized by Google: View It in Excessive Res­o­lu­tion On-line

A Chi­nese Painter Spe­cial­iz­ing in Copy­ing Van Gogh Paint­ings Trav­els to Ams­ter­dam & Sees Van Gogh’s Mas­ter­items for the First Time

Based mostly in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His initiatives embrace the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the ebook The State­much less Metropolis: a Stroll by means of Twenty first-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social web­work for­mer­ly often known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.