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The Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, displayed at the Louvre Museum in Paris, is without a doubt one of the most famous paintings of all time. There are many mysteries and legends surrounding the piece and its subject, but this latest development is perhaps the most intriguing one yet. A French scientist named Pascal Cotte believes that hidden behind the Mona Lisa is a portrait of another woman.
10 years of observation
Cotte is the co-founder of Lumiere Technology, a company that works with galleries and museums to digitize the art. He has pioneered a technique called Layer Amplification Method (LAM) to analyze artwork on a much deeper level.
“We can now analyze exactly what is happening inside the layers of the paint and we can peel like an onion all the layers of the painting. We can reconstruct all the chronology of the creation of the painting,” he said.
The company has worked on pieces by famous artists such as Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Claude Renoir, and more. The Louvre allowed Cotte to access the Mona Lisa in 2004 and he has been working on it ever since. He analyzed the painting using reflective light technology, which showed him a picture lying underneath.
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Who is the subject?
The identity of the Mona Lisa has never been confirmed. However, it is widely believed that she is Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine merchant. The underlying image is much different than the Mona Lisa: it portrays a woman who is looking out to the side of the frame, has a bigger head, nose, and hands, has smaller lips, and does not have Mona Lisa’s mysterious smile. Cotte believes his discovery shows that Gherardini is the hidden woman. The portrait was never given to her husband. Then da Vinci painted another unknown woman over her.
“The results shatter many myths and alter our vision of Leonardo’s masterpiece forever,” Cotte said. “When I finished the reconstruction of Lisa Gherardini, I was in front of the portrait and she is totally different to Mona Lisa today. This is not the same woman.”
Many are skeptical of his claim
The Louvre has not commented on Cotte’s claim since they were not involved in the analysis. If this is true, it would be an earth-shattering discovery in the art world. Naturally, there are many skeptics. Martin Kemp, Emeritus Professor of the History of Art at the University of Oxford, said:
“They [Cotte’s images] are ingenious in showing what Leonardo may have been thinking about. But the idea that there is that picture as it were hiding underneath the surface is untenable. I do not think there are these discrete stages which represent different portraits. I see it as more or less a continuous process of evolution. I am absolutely convinced that the Mona Lisa is Lisa.”
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