A Second and Third Mona Lisa?
Everyone knows the famous Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris and the mystery surrounding her. But, honestly, it has pretty much been solved, she was painted by Leonardo da Vinci and we know her identity, but what remains murky is if there are two other Mona Lisas floating around and if he also painted those.
This article is extra fun for me because here I get to give you background on THREE paintings before we discuss their potential connections.
Mona Lisa
We’ll start with the most iconic, THE Mona Lisa hanging in the Louvre and owned by the French government. I’ll gloss over this one a little because she is just so well known. We’re not questioning her at all, she was definitely painted by da Vinci between 1503 and 1506. We also (probably) know that she is Italian noblewoman Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, which is why she is sometimes called La Gioconda. Also, fun fact, the Mona Lisa holds the Guinness World Record for highest known insurance valuation in history at $100 million in 1962 ($660 million in 2019).
Again, we are not questioning her authenticity in any way but you definitely want to take a close look at her and keep her in mind when we talk about the next two paintings.
Isleworth Mona Lisa
I know this is weird to question the connection here, because this painting literally has Mona Lisa in her name too, but bear with me, we’ll get to all of that in a second. I don’t want to scoop myself so I’ll give you her agreed-upon background first.
Isleworth Mona Lisa is an early sixteenth-century oil on canvas depicting what is generally agreed to be the same subject as THE Mona Lisa but painted 10 years earlier, when she was a younger woman. It has changed hands a number of times over the years and since the 1910s there has been some debate within the art community as to whether or not da Vinci painted this as an earlier version of the Mona Lisa.
Prado Mona Lisa
Finally, our third lady is held by the Louvre it has been displayed at the Museo del Prado in Madrid since 1819. It is generally agreed that this painting too is of the same subject as the Mona Lisa, Lisa Gherardini, and some even think that it was painted at the same time as the Mona Lisa. This would explain why the subject appears to be the same age as she is in the more famous version.
For years this painting was dismissed as an anonymous copy of the Mona Lisa because it just showed the subject on a black background. However, restoration was done to the piece between 2010 and 2012 and it was discovered that the painting actually has a super detailed and beautiful background, similar to the one in the Louvre, that had been painted over with black in the 1700s. Once the background was revealed its value and importance immediately skyrocketed.
The Controversy
So I will let you know right off the bat that the main controversy and debate here exists between the Mona Lisa and the Isleworth Mona Lisa. It is pretty widely accepted that the Prado Mona Lisa is a very very high-quality replica, created by one of da Vinci’s top students in either Spain or Italy working alongside him as he created his own version. It is no ordinary replica because of the very careful attention to detail and the use of more expensive materials that lower apprentices wouldn’t have had access to. I included her here because she is considered one of the most famous replicas in the world and also things are better in threes.
Anyways, onto the main drama. So the Isleworth Mona Lisa was likely brought from Italy to England in the 1780s and later came into the public view in 1913 when the English connoisseur Hugh Blaker bought it from a house in Somerset where it’s said the painting had been hanging for over a century. Ever since, the art world has been divided on the question of who painted this piece. Notable art critics have both said ‘yes definitely it is the work of da Vinci’ and ‘no absolutely not how can you be so stupid to think this is da Vinci’. Here they are side by side for your convenience:
In 1914 art critic and historian Paul George Konody examined Isleworth Mona Lisa and concluded that “though not altogether from the hand of Leonardo da Vinci himself, it emanates most certainly from his studio and was very largely worked up by the master himself” (Konody, 1914). So basically that means that it was definitely painted in da Vinci’s studio and mostly by da Vinci himself, though he admits that maybe a few areas were done by an apprentice. A bunch of other art critics and da Vinci connoisseurs also came to this conclusion and some, of course, opposed them.
This debate inevitably lead to scientific techniques being used to try to definitively determine whether the Isleworth Mona Lisa is an earlier version done by an apprentice or if it was painted by the master himself. People thought that this would give them a more definite answer than just experts on da Vinci or art historians looking at the painting and coming to one conclusion or another.
In 1962 Henry Pulitzer acquired the painting and decided to test it using X-rays. He presents his findings in his book, he presents some laboratory evidence, such as light to dark ratios across the canvas and X-rays, that suggested the painting to be by Leonardo. However, he does not say how he carried out these tests and they aren’t corroborated by any outside source so this is a little sketchy to me. His one claim that does hold water is that Raphael, da Vinci’s contemporary, made a sketch of a painting veeeeeery similar to Isleworth Mona Lisa, likely from memory, after seeing it in da Vinci’s studio (why would it be in his studio if he wasn’t the one painting it). The convincing part is that this sketch includes two Greek columns in the background that are not found in the Mona Lisa but are present in the Isleworth Mona Lisa. Make of that what you will.
Then in the late 1980s physicist, John F. Asmus used computer image processing software to examine both paintings. He was able to see how the colours in each would look if they weren’t being distorted by the yellowed varnish covering both paintings and through this, he concluded that the brush strokes on both paintings were done by the same guy. You can compare the hands and style of both for yourself below, as best you can on a screen.
There have been a bunch of studies and investigations done in the 21st century but everything that I could find said that these, for the most part, concluded that the Isleworth Mona Lisa was painted by da Vinci, or at least most of it was. They also mostly conclude that it was painted about 10 years before the Mona Lisa so it would make sense that the subject looks younger.
Honestly, I am inclined to believe that the Isleworth Mona Lisa was painted by da Vinci and was perhaps a version he never finished. The more I read about this mystery and how many people have looked into it the more the evidence seems to stack up in this direction. But as always, you’re free to come to your own conclusions, though all I can find for the other side is da Vinci scholars saying ‘I don’t really think so’, most of the scientific studies I looked at found that da Vinci likely painted both pieces. I hope that’s right because it’s always fun to uncover a long-forgotten, unfinished masterpiece.
Works Cited
Konody, Paul George. “Another ‘Mona Lisa’ Found in London?” The New York Times. 1914. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Another_%27Mona_Lisa%27_Found_in_London%3F