Mona Lisa earliest copy discovered

February 1, 2012 - 16:32 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Conservators at the Prado in Madrid recently made an astonishing discovery, hidden beneath black overpaint. What was assumed to be a replica of the Mona Lisa made after Leonardo’s death had actually been painted by one of his key pupils, working alongside the master. The picture is more than just a studio copy - it changed as Leonardo developed his original composition,The Art Newspaper reported.

The final traces of overpaint are now being removed by Prado conservators, revealing the fine details of the delicate Tuscan landscape, which mirrors the background of Leonardo’s masterpiece. Darkened varnish is also being painstakingly stripped away from the face of the Mona Lisa, giving a much more vivid impression of her enticing eyes and enigmatic smile.

In the Louvre’s original, which will not be cleaned in the foreseeable future, Lisa’s face is obscured by old, cracked varnish, making her appear almost middle aged. In the Prado copy one see her as she would have looked at the time - as a radiant young woman in her early 20s.

Until recently, curators at the Prado had no idea of the significance of their copy of the Mona Lisa. There are dozens of surviving replicas from the 16th and 17th centuries. The Madrid version was believed by some specialist to have been painted fairly early, but the absence of the landscape background meant that it aroused little interest (there is no substantive entry on it in the Prado’s collection catalogues).

Although the portrait is finely painted, the dull, black background had a deadening visual effect on the image of the young woman. The sitter is generally believed to represent Lisa Gherardini, the wife of the Florentine cloth merchant Francesco del Giocondo.

The Prado’s painting was until recently assumed to be on oak (rarely used in Italy at the time) and therefore a work by a northern European artist. José Ruiz Manero, the author of a study of Italian art in Spanish collections, concluded that the picture was Flemish.

In a paper presented two weeks ago at a technical conference at London’s National Gallery, coinciding with its exhibition “Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan” (until 5 February), conservators revealed that they had discovered that the black background was a later addition. This conference was not covered in the media.

A striking photograph was presented at the conference, showing the picture’s condition after 90% of the black overpaint had been removed, leaving just a small section in the upper right. Visually, the landscape transforms the work, bringing the picture to life.

There was an even greater surprise: infrared reflectography images of the Prado replica were compared with those obtained in 2004 from the original of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. This process enables conservators to peer beneath the surface of the paint, to see underdrawing and changes which evolved in the composition.

The fully conserved replica is expected to be unveiled at the Prado in Madrid in mid-February. It is then due to be loaned to the Louvre in Paris, as a late addition to its exhibition on “Leonardo’s Last Masterpiece: The Sainte Anne” (March 29 –June 25).