Eloise HorsfieldIT is arguably the world’s most famous painting – but Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa may have a Spanish twin.
Experts at Madrid’s Prado museum believe they have uncovered a version that was painted at the same time and in the same studio as the original… by one of Da Vinci’s students.
The discovery was made during restoration work on the canvas and will be used to help unlock some of the enduring mysteries surrounding the woman with the enigmatic smile.
The painting is set to hang alongside its more famous sister in The Louvre museum, in Paris from March 29 to June 25.
I would think if I had a copy of the Mona Lisa in my closet, it would not have taken this long to find it.
When I traveled for first time to Paris in 1975, i could remember see “La Monalisa” in the Louvre Museum I remember to talk with my aunt about a portrait in the Prado’s museum of a “Spanish Monalisa”. I have a book of Prado’s museum with this painting, editing around 1964.
This painting isn’t a new discovery for the museum. The painting it was in a restauration work to recover the original inks behind a black background around the image of “Monalisa”.
There was some surprises after the restauration.
First of all with the modern technic we can said, this version that was painted at the same time and in the same studio as the original.
Rafaell he had made a copy in the study of Leonardo, he painted two columns in the landscape behind Mona Lisa, same as a Prado’s portrait.
Girgio Vasari in 1560 when described the portrait speak about his colors and ensures that it was a young woman 18 or 19 years old, lush-looking, with eyes and eyebrows that seemed natural, …
Now scientists are studing a fingerprint made when the portrait was painting
The mistery it’s served, …
http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2012/02/01/actualidad