When Leonardo Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa, was he really painting himself?
I heard that a scientist analyzed the face proportions of Leonardo’s self-portrait and his Mona Lisa and they matched exactly.
Also, when the Mona Lisa was stolen, it was x-rayed to see if it was the original painting. They found that it was, but that a beard had been originally painted on the Mona Lisa but later covered up.
Never seen the original and have never thought it was beautiful, or that he, she or it was beautiful but this sounds like a Parisian UL. And Leonardo was much more handsome than that.
Oh, I’m gonna keep using these #%@&* codes 'til I get 'em right.
Stay tuned, a Mailbag article on the Mona Lisa is coming up in the next few weeks.
Yes, among the crazy theories about who the model is, someone took a portrait of Leonardo and did a mirror-reversed image of the Mona Lisa and claimed that it was a perfect fit.
I don’t recall seeing anything about a ‘beard’ when it was x-rayed.
For more about the Mona Lisa than you ever wanted to know really, check out the book “MONA LISA – The Picture and the Myth” by McMullen.
Here’s some more Leonardo wackiness:
http://www.forteantimes.com/index3.html
I would hardly be surprised if Mona does look a lot like Leo. Artists are generally most familiar with their own face and do a lot of self-portraits, so they tend to use their own face as a template for others. Not to mention if you have a consistent style, all the people you draw will look a little bit alike. The Leo portrait they used to compare to the Mona Lisa was done by Leo himself, IIRC. I certainly have never heard the “beard” theory. It’s possible there was an underpainting, i.e. Leo could have painted over a previous portrait of a beared man that he did. But I’ve never heard a whisper about an underpainting for the Mona Lisa either.
The person who said that was definitely high. This is one of those works that has gained too much attention so the wackos come out of the woodwork to monkey around, like with the pyramids. In addition, lately someone has done some pretty thorough archival work and it seems that Vasari’s identification of the woman is probably indeed correct (Francesco del Giocondo’s wife, Monna (sic) Lisa).
[not quite a hijack, more of a digression]
frolix8 - thanks for the link. I read a few of their articles about da Vinci - including one that suggests Leonardo had a hand in the creation of the Shroud of Turin! I just read a New Yorker article about David Hockney - he believes artists were using lenses and primitive cameras (obscura and lucida) as an aid to drawing much earlier than previously suspected. I wonder if Hockney has heard about this?
[/digression]
& no answer for this @ http://www.MonaLisa.com/
If my memory were better, I could be a little more helpful, but here’s what I’ve got.
There was a modern artist (20th century) who made a copy of the Mona Lisa and painted a beard on her and, I think, a moustache. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the artist. I’ll check my art books tonight and see if I can find it. In any case, this may be the source of the beard story.
“I should not take bribes and Minister Bal Bahadur KC should not do so either. But if clerks take a bribe of Rs 50-60 after a hard day’s work, it is not an issue.” ----Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, Current Prime Minister of Nepal
Got it, Lucky: Marcel Duchamp’s L.H.O.O.Q. (1920). I don’t have a link handy, but I’m sure anyone interested could locate it quickly with a decent search.
Oops. My memory failed me. I looked it up and found a date of 1919, not 1920, for L.H.O.O.Q. Sorry.
If DaVinci had a hand in the Shroud of Turin, that would make him a time-traveller too. The Shroud of Turin made its first public appearance in the 1300s.
As long as we’re talking about the Mona Lisa, here’s the story on its 1910 theft. It was part of a scam. Two conmen, Yves Chaudron and Eduardo de Valfierno, went around to several unscrupulous art collectors and discussed how much money might be available if the masterpiece “somehow” came up for sale. It was of course understood that the collector would be unable to publically admit to his new ownership. The exact identities of the collectors and specific figures mentioned were never disclosed but clearly went into the millions.
Shortly thereafter, the Mona Lisa was stolen (the security at the Louvre turned out to be appallingly poor prior to this). The collectors then received their painting. Yes, collectors, because Chaudron and Valfierno had concluded deals with six different buyers; each of whom got a forged copy of the original.
The actual thief, Vincezo Perugia, however had been told that the painting had been stolen for ransom and hid the real painting. Chaudron and Valfierno however apparently felt ransoming the painting was too risky and never contacted the Louvre or the French government. Perugia eventually attempted to ransom the painting himself but when he tried to do so, the price he asked was so low that his contact, a dealer named Alfredo Geri, decided that it would be more profitable to turn him in for the reward rather than take a share of the ransom.
At his trial, Perugia claimed that he stole the painting because as an Italian he was dishonored by its French ownership. His tactic succeeded in reducing to his sentence to the few months he was impsioned before his trial. Chaudron and Valfierno were even more successful; neither was ever arrested. Their “clients” were perhaps most fortunate; none of them was ever identified (although J.P. Morgan and William Randolph Hearst were suspected). Geri had less luck, as the French government reneged on the reward.
Duchamp! Thanks, ScottyMo.
“I should not take bribes and Minister Bal Bahadur KC should not do so either. But if clerks take a bribe of Rs 50-60 after a hard day’s work, it is not an issue.” ----Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, Current Prime Minister of Nepal
The coolest part about this is that if you pronounce the letters “L.H.O.O.Q.” in French, the result sounds roughly like something that translates as “She has a hot ass.”
“The world is everything that is the case.” --Ludwig Wittgenstein