Behind Mona Lisa's Smile: Another Woman?

Pascal Cotte used reflective light technology to analyze the paint layers
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 8, 2015 12:11 PM CST
Is there another Lisa under there?   (Shutterstock)


For instance, the hidden portrait shows a woman who boasts a bigger head, nose, and hands, as well as smaller lips, the Telegraph notes. Which means, as an art historian tells the paper, that "it was a portrait [that woman's] husband never received. Instead, Leonardo went on to paint the world's most famous picture over the top." But not everyone's convinced the find is that amazing. An Oxford University art history professor tells the BBC that the newly uncovered model was likely not the start of a completely different painting, but simply an "evolution" of the final Mona Lisa in which Da Vinci kept painting over the previous version until he got the result he wanted. "I am absolutely convinced that the Mona Lisa is Lisa," he says. The Louvre, for its part, is declining comment because it "was not part of the scientific team" that analyzed the painting, per the BBC. (The Telegraph floats a whole bunch of intriguing rumors about the painting.)

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