10.6092/issn.1973-9494/17299
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1973-9494
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Andrea Natali
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Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage
attribution and authentication of works of art
The background story and research history of the case study “Mona Lisa”: the volume “Is the Louvre Mona Lisa Leonardo’s Second Version?”
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Articles
2023-07-20
2023-06-20
2023-07-20
2023-07-20
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CSCH
Andrea Natali
2022
10.6092/issn.1973-9494/17299
35
Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences
1973-9494
attribution and authentication of works of art
en
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The background story and research history of the case study “Mona Lisa”: the volume “Is the Louvre Mona Lisa Leonardo’s Second Version?”
https://conservation-science.unibo.it/article/download/17299/16516
22
T   HE BACKGROUND STORY AND RESEARCH HISTORY
    OF THE CASE STUDY ON THE MONA LISA: THE VOLUME
    “IS THE LOUVRE MONA LISA LEONARDO’S SECOND
    VERSION?”


   Salvatore Lorusso*
   Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences

   With the collaboration of Angela Mari Braida and Andrea Natali

   Keywords: Mona Lisa, attribution and authentication of works of art



   1. Premise

     The volume: “Is the Louvre Mona Lisa Leonardo’s second version?” with the corre-
sponding subtitle “Methodological path, historical-bibliographic sources, final judge-
ment” [1] is connected to the research I have carried out over the years regarding the
attribution and authentication of artworks. For this work, various artifacts of historical-ar-
tistic, archeological and archival-bibliographic interest were examined, and the find-
ings published in a series of papers [2-9], which also includes a previous volume on the
“Mona Lisa” [10].
     It is precisely with this theme that my story and history of Mona Lisa begins, to-
gether with the scientific events that led to the publication of the present volume.
     And the consequent question is: “What is the sequence of these events?
     The first is the stylistic analysis and diagnostic-analytical investigation of a Mona
Lisa painting, housed in a private museum in St. Petersburg, Russia (Figure 1) [2].
     All the results showed that the St. Petersburg Mona Lisa was executed between
1590 and 1660 and is of Nordic derivation, specifically German-Flemish. It excludes
the period of life and work of Leonardo from 1452-1519: it is therefore a copy of the
Mona Lisa housed in the Louvre Museum, Paris, France, and whose authenticity by
Leonardo is unanimously accepted (Figure 2).
     Nevertheless, the St. Petersburg Mona Lisa is of good workmanship and in a good
state of conservation; however, it lacks the distinctive features of Leonardo’s painting
technique, such as the light subtle brushstrokes, the typical warm colors of his land-
scapes and his “chiaroscuro”.
     This first investigation determined my keen interest in this particular subject and,
consequently, led to the second phase of my research. This was directed towards an
in-depth archival-bibliographic examination of the numerous copies of Mona Lisa ex-
ecuted over the centuries and the corresponding scientific papers by the various
scholars [5].




   * Corresponding author: salvatore.lorusso@unibo.it
                                                                                                       13 paintings were selected, from which 4 were then chosen as they were consid-
                                                                                                   ered to be the most complete based on an evaluation not only of the stylistic, but also
                                                                                                   the technical data: the Prado Mona Lisa (Figure 3), the Reynolds Mona Lisa (Figure 4),
                                                                                                   the St. Petersburg Mona Lisa (Figure 1) and the Isleworth Mona Lisa (Figure 5), also
                                                                                                   called the Earlier Mona Lisa. It must be kept in mind, as I said before, that the St. Pe-
                                                                                                   tersburg Mona Lisa, was the object of study and research carried out with my collabo-
                                                                                                   rators in the Diagnostic Laboratory of Cultural Heritage in Bologna University, Italy.
                                                                                                       Among these 4 paintings, executed at different times, particular attention was paid
                                                                                                   to the Isleworth Mona Lisa painting.
Salvatore Lorusso - The background story and research history of the case study on the Mona Lisa




                                                                                                   Figure 1. The St. Petersburg Mona Lisa, oil on       Figure 2. The Louvre Mona Lisa, oil on
                                                                                                   canvas, with columns.                                wood, with traces of columns.



                                                                                                      2. The Isleworth Mona Lisa or Earlier Mona Lisa

                                                                                                       For the “Isleworth Mona Lisa” or “Earlier Mona Lisa”, unfinished and representing a
                                                                                                   young Mona Lisa – who, later, we will call Lisa del Giocondo to distinguish her from the
                                                                                                   Louvre Mona Lisa – it is opportune to specify a previous attribution made in 1922 by a
                                                                                                   group of experts who established unanimously that the Isleworth Mona Lisa was an
                                                                                                   “original” by Leonardo (I highlight the term “original” because it was a subjective eval-
                                                                                                   uation, that is, a stylistic and aesthetic analysis without the use of diagnostic technolo-
                                                                                                   gies). The same group of experts had already evaluated the Louvre Mona Lisa about
                                                                                                   10 years earlier and expressed the same positive judgement: a fact which confirms the
                                                                                                   competence of the experts regarding Leonardo’s painting [10].


                                                                                       36
                                                          Figure 4. The Reynolds Mona Lisa, oil on
                                                          wood, with columns.
Figure 3. The Prado Mona Lisa, oil on wood,
with traces of columns.


                                                              In addition to a subjective evalu-
                                                          ation and the results of experimental
                                                          investigations obtained over the years
                                                          relating to the authentication of the
                                                          Isleworth Mona Lisa, the following




                                                                                                          CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
                                                          findings are reported:
                                                               ‒ 2012: “Regression Project”,
                                                                 the application of a forensic
                                                                 technique to art, developed by
                                                                 the American Joe Mullins, who
                                                                 demonstrated that the younger
                                                                 figure in the Isleworth Mona Lisa
                                                                 was approximately 11-12 years
                                                                 younger than the Louvre Mona
                                                                 Lisa [11].
                                                               ‒ 2017: “Multispectral digitiza-
                                                                 tion” developed by John As-
                                                                 mus of California University
                                                                 (U.S.A.) and Vadim Parfenov
                                                                 of St. Petersburg University
                                                                 (Russia), which measured the
                                                                 brushstrokes relating to the
                                                                 faces of the Louvre and Isle-
                                                                 worth portraits and compared
Figure 5. The Isleworth Mona Lisa or Earlier Mona Lisa,          them with the faces of other
oil on canvas, with columns.                                     paintings of the same subject:


                                                                                                     37
                                                                                                         results revealed that the faces of the Louvre and Isleworth portraits were painted
                                                                                                         by the same author [12].
                                                                                                       ‒ The linen canvas of the support has the same characteristics as the support
                                                                                                         used by Leonardo to paint his famous draperies.
                                                                                                       ‒ It is equally evident how Leonardo’s palette for the Isleworth Mona Lisa remains
                                                                                                         faithful to the indications and theories expressed in his “Treatise” in the part ded-
                                                                                                         icated to art. In fact, the Louvre Mona Lisa has a red brown ocher imprimatur
                                                                                                         layer made up of a combination of calcite and quartz grains. This red earth im-
                                                                                                         primatur is compatible with other famous paintings by Leonardo with the same
                                                                                                         reddish brown background color which, moreover, is also observed in many of
                                                                                                         his drawings and studies. The same happens for the other pigments, especially
                                                                                                         earths, traces of enamel and azurite, present both in the Isleworth Mona Lisa
                                                                                                         and in other famous works by Leonardo [13-15].
Salvatore Lorusso - The background story and research history of the case study on the Mona Lisa




                                                                                                      3. Is the Louvre Mona Lisa Leonardo’s second version?

                                                                                                        After the previous two phases of my research on the “Mona Lisa” and with the aim
                                                                                                   of confirming the previous findings of the subjective and objective evaluation of the
                                                                                                   Isleworth Mona Lisa painting, my imperative was aimed at the development of a further
                                                                                                   methodological path, thus answering the question which is the title of the book “Is the
                                                                                                   Louvre Mona Lisa Leonardo’s second version?” [1].
                                                                                                        The answer is connected to understanding when the Louvre Mona Lisa was paint-
                                                                                                   ed by establishing its execution date and, consequently, the date of the other painting
                                                                                                   mentioned previously, that is, the other version of the Louvre Mona Lisa by Leonardo.
                                                                                                        So, looking at the historical-bibliographic references taken from the scientific publi-
                                                                                                   cations of authors from fifteen hundred to today, the corresponding opinions have been
                                                                                                   considered and discussed. In relation to this, I would like to highlight that all extracts
                                                                                                   taken from the texts and examined are faithfully reproduced at the end of the book in
                                                                                                   order to be consulted in their original version.
                                                                                                        To give an answer to the question posed previously “When did Leonardo execute the
                                                                                                   Louvre Mona Lisa?” and for an easier and clearer understanding, I have collected the
                                                                                                   various points referring to those texts in a summarized list. The points, which distinguish
                                                                                                   the two paintings on the basis of 8 respective characteristics, are: historical-bibliograph-
                                                                                                   ic, visual-aesthetic, stylistic, structural and analytical characteristics. In particular:

                                                                                                      HISTORICAL-BIBLIOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS
                                                                                                      1. Antonio de Beatis, in his diary states that in 1517 Leonardo showed Cardinal
                                                                                                         Louis of Aragon, who was visiting him in Cloux (France), the painting of “a cer-
                                                                                                         tain Florentine woman” commissioned by Giuliano De’ Medici.
                                                                                                      2. It is documented that Leonardo worked in Rome for Giuliano De’ Medici from
                                                                                                         1513 to 1516, while in the early 1500s, from 1503-1506 he was in Florence,
                                                                                                         where he worked on the painting of Lisa del Giocondo.
                                                                                                      VISUAL-AESTHETIC CHARACTERISTICS
                                                                                                      3. The characteristics of the face of Lisa del Giocondo described by Vasari are very
                                                                                                         different from those of the Louvre Mona Lisa.
                                                                                                      4. The Louvre Mona Lisa presents a figure who is visibly more advanced in age
                                                                                                         compared to the one of Lisa del Giocondo.


                                                                                      38
   STYLISTIC CHARACTERISTICS
   5. In particular the “velato” technique, in addition to the geological and morpholog-
      ical characteristics of the landscape, evidence that the Louvre Mona Lisa paint-
      ing was executed after 1508.
   STRUCTURAL CHARACTERISTICS
   6. The background is present in the Louvre Mona Lisa painting, instead it is not present
      in the Lisa del Giocondo painting, as testified by Vespucci, Raffaello and Vasari.
   7. The Lisa del Giocondo painting described by Vasari was unfinished, instead
      scholars sustain that the Louvre painting is finished.
   ANALYTICAL CHARACTERISTICS
   8. The Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France (C2RMF)
      performed an infrared reflectography analysis on the Louvre Mona Lisa painting,
      revealing the order of execution of the various pictorial elements, that is, first,
      the background and, on top of it, the figure [15]. The Lisa del Giocondo painting,
      instead, does not present this order of execution, because there is only the fig-
      ure, and the landscape is missing.


   4. Long gestation theory

   To end, I would like to mention the “long-gestation” theory, a vain attempt to provide
an explanation for the existence of a single painting.
                                                   Unable to accept what is specifically
                                              and clearly described and documented in
                                              the characteristics mentioned above,
                                              supporters of this theory link them to the




                                                                                                   CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
                                              same Louvre Mona Lisa portrait. They
                                              point out that Leonardo began to paint
                                              the figure of Lisa del Giocondo in Flor-
                                              ence in 1503, left it unfinished and then
                                              completed it in the following years, after
                                              1508, by adding the background and oth-
                                              er elements missing from the painting.
                                                   This is how the supporters of this the-
                                              ory justify the presence of the stylistic,
                                              morphological and geological elements
                                              as well as the “velato/glazing”, character-
                                              istic of Leonardo’s pictorial technique in
                                              later years, that is after 1508, all in one
                                              painting: that of the Louvre Mona Lisa.
                                                   This is the attempt to justify what has
                                              been highlighted by the previous charac-
                                              teristics in the two distinct paintings which
                                              can rightly be called vain.
                                                   In addition, the analyses carried out
                                              on the Louvre Mona Lisa by the Centre de
    Figure 6. Infrared reflectography (IRR).  Recherche et de Restauration des Musées


                                                                                              39
                                                                                                                                                                 de France ‒ in particular, the
                                                                                                                                                                 use of infrared reflectogra-
                                                                                                                                                                 phy ‒ showed that the back-
                                                                                                                                                                 ground was painted at the
                                                                                                                                                                 same time as the figure and
                                                                                                                                                                 not after an interval of a few
                                                                                                                                                                 years. The sequence of the
                                                                                                                                                                 compositional elements of
                                                                                                                                                                 the painting were therefore
                                                                                                                                                                 executed as follows: first the
                                                                                                                                                                 background and, on top of it,
                                                                                                                                                                 immediately after, the figure
                                                                                                                                                                 (Figure 6).
Salvatore Lorusso - The background story and research history of the case study on the Mona Lisa




                                                                                                                                                                     Furthermore, the contin-
                                                                                                                                                                 uous network of craquelure
                                                                                                                                                                 shows that the lower and up-
                                                                                                                                                                 per parts of the landscape
                                                                                                                                                                 were also painted at the same
                                                                                                                                                                 time (Figure 7).
                                                                                                   Figure 7. An example of the network of craquelure: oblique
                                                                                                   craquelure (a); detail (b), Louvre Mona Lisa.
                                                                                                                                                                     5. Conclusion

                                                                                                       All previous characteristics have demonstrated that the Louvre Mona Lisa cannot
                                                                                                   be the portrait of Lisa del Giocondo, Leonardo’s work of 1503-1506.
                                                                                                       The evidence has therefore shown there must be another painting, different to the
                                                                                                   Louvre version, providing important information about its style and structure.
                                                                                                       Here then, in conclusion, is how my story-history of the case study “Mona Lisa” was
                                                                                                   born (interest), how it changed (choice), what it achieved (commitment), what it con-
                                                                                                   firmed (certainty).


                                                                                                         References

                                                                                                   [1]     Lorusso, S., (2022) ”Is the Louvre Mona Lisa Leonardo’s second version?” L’Er-
                                                                                                           ma di Bretschneider, Rome-Bristol.
                                                                                                   [2]     Lorusso, S., Matteucci, C., Natali, A., Apicella, S., Fiorillo, F. L. (2013) Diagnos-
                                                                                                           tic - analytical study of the painting “Gioconda with columns”, Conservation Sci-
                                                                                                           ence in Cultural Heritage, vol. 13, pp. 75-127, Mimesis Edizioni, Milano-Udine.
                                                                                                   [3]     Lorusso, S., Matteucci, C., Natali, A., Apicella, S. (2013) Traditional and non-tra-
                                                                                                           ditional, innovative and ephemeral materials and techniques in today’s cultural
                                                                                                           heritage, Russian Chemical Bulletin, International Edition, Vol. 62, No. 7, pp.
                                                                                                           1671-1681, July 2013.
                                                                                                   [4]     Lorusso, S., Natali, A. (2014) Le diverse tipologie di riproduzione nell’arte, in “Il
                                                                                                           diritto dell’arte. La protezione del patrimonio artistico”, edited by Negri-Clementi
                                                                                                           G., Stabile S., Skira, Ginevra-Milano, pp.155-167.
                                                                                                   [5]     Lorusso, S., Natali, A. (2015) Mona Lisa: a comparative evaluation of the diffe-
                                                                                                           rent versions and their copies, Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage, Vol.
                                                                                                           15 pag. 57-84, Mimesis Edizioni, Milano-Udine.


                                                                                40
[6]     Lorusso, S., Natali, A. (2015) La ricerca storico-artistica e tecnico-scientifica per
        la tutela e la valorizzazione del patrimonio culturale, La Chimica e l’Industria,
        2(5), pp. 35-42.
[7]     Lorusso, S., Natali, A. (2019) “The Mona Lisa: a comparative evaluation of dif-
        ferent versions and copies» in Mona Lisa: New Perspective”, edited by Jean
        Pierre Isbouts, pp. 90-95, Santa Barbara: Fielding University Press.
[8]     Lorusso, S., Natali, A. (2019) The synergy between human sciences and exper-
        imental sciences for the protection and valorization of cultural and environmen-
        tal heritage: Salvatore Lorusso’s activities in education and research, Conserva-
        tion Science in Cultural Heritage, Vol. 19 pag. 29-50, Mimesis Edizioni,
        Milano-Udine.
[9]     Lorusso, S., Natali, A., Braida, A. M. (2019) The different possibilities of evaluat-
        ing a work of art: case study of the Mona Lisa, Conservation Science in Cultur-
        al Heritage, Vol. 19 pag. 307-317, Mimesis Edizioni, Milano-Udine.
[10]    Lorusso, S., Natali, A. (2021) A Second Mona Lisa? Challenges of attribution
        and authentication and various possibilities for evaluating a work of art, L’Erma
        di Bretschneider, Rome-Bristol.
[11]    The Mona Lisa Foundation, www.monalisa.org
[12]    Asmus, J., Parfenov, V., (2017) Analysis of paintings “Mona Lisa” and Earlier
        Mona Lisa created by Leonardo Da Vinci by means of luminosity histograms of
        digitized images, in Proceedings of the Ilya Repin Lenigrad Institute for Painting,
        Sculpture and Architecture of Russian Academy of Fine Arts, Vol. 42, pp. 221-235.
[13]    Pedretti, C., 2005, Leonardo. La pittura, in Art Dossier, n. 215, Milano, Giunti.
[14]    Rosenberg, P., 1999, La pittura in Europa: la pittura francese, Milano, Electa
        Mondadori.
[15]    Mohen, J.P, Menu, M., Mottin, B., (2006) Explorations at the Heart of the Mona
        Lisa. In Mona Lisa: Inside the Painting edited by Jean-Pierre Mohen, Michel Menu
        and Bruno Mottin, pp. 12-13. New York: Abrams.




                                                                                                     CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
      Biographical notes

    Salvatore Lorusso was formerly a full Professor at the University of Bologna. He is
a Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences; Emeritus Professor of
the Cultural Heritage Institute of Zhejiang University (China); formerly a Visiting Profes-
sor at the Academy of Social Science of Zhejiang University, China; Visiting Professor
of the Faculty of Arts, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia; formerly vice-pres-
ident of the Società Italiana per il Progresso delle Scienze (SIPS, established in 1839).
He is Direttore Generale of the Accademia della Cultura Enogastronomica. His biogra-
phy appears in the 2016 Marquis Edition of Who’s Who in the World. He is the author
of over 445 publications in national and international journals and 25 volumes and
monographs covering commodity science, cultural heritage and environmental issues.
In 1997, he founded the Diagnostic Laboratory for Cultural Heritage at the Ravenna
Campus of the University of Bologna and remained head of the Laboratory for eigh-
teen years. In 2001 he founded the historical-technical Journal “Conservation Science
in Cultural Heritage” of which he is Editor-in-Chief. His scientific work deals mainly with
the study of the “system: artifact-environment-biota” and diagnostic, analytical, techni-
cal and economic evaluation within the context of the protection and valorization of cul-
tural and environmental heritage.


                                                                                                41
                                                                                                      Summary

                                                                                                       The research carried out over the years on the theme “Attribution and authentica-
                                                                                                   tion of artworks” and, therefore, on the case-study “Mona Lisa”, as topical as it is
                                                                                                   strongly debated, was continued with a first and then a second volume entitled: “Is the
                                                                                                   Louvre Mona Lisa Leonardo’s second version?”
                                                                                                       500 years of historical-bibliographic references taken from publications by scholars
                                                                                                   of the humanistic and experimental sciences, relating to the question posed in the title
                                                                                                   of the volume, were examined.
                                                                                                       It was proved, with reasonable certainty, that Leonardo executed two distinct and
                                                                                                   successive paintings of the Mona Lisa with different aesthetic-visual and structural
                                                                                                   characteristics confirmed by analytical investigations as well as historical-bib-
                                                                                                   liographic examinations. More specifically, this refers to a first unfinished version of
Salvatore Lorusso - The background story and research history of the case study on the Mona Lisa




                                                                                                   the younger Lisa del Giocondo referable to the painting, Isleworth Mona Lisa, called
                                                                                                   Earlier Mona Lisa, and to the successive version, that is the Louvre Mona Lisa, finished,
                                                                                                   as a result of a more advanced pictorial technique and different structure.




                                                                                    42
