Hidden Portrait Found Under 'Mona Lisa' Painting

[n2doc]

A hidden portrait underneath the "Mona Lisa" has been discovered by a French scientist, who said he uncovered the image using reflective light technology.

The digitally reconstructed image of the hidden portrait was presented at a press conference in Shanghai on Tuesday by scientist Pascal Cotte, who's been analyzing the Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece for over a decade, the BBC reported. Pascal said he uncovered the image using a multi-lens camera that took images of the painting under intense light.

The hidden portrait features a sitting subject who looks almost identical to the "Mona Lisa," minus small but significant differences.

The sitter in the image appears to be looking to the side rather than directly at the viewer, and the sitter does not seem to have the enigmatic smile that's intrigued "Mona Lisa" viewers for over 500 years.

more
http://abcnews.go.com/International/hidden-portrait-found-mona-lisa-painting/story?id=35649734

[edhopper]

1. The problem here is he is a scientist,not an artist

that there are layers and corrections in a painting that took so long to paint is not surprising.
The problem is he digitally created this new painting based on the under layers.
I doubt it ever looked like that. More like a work in progress.

[ananda]

2. That makes sense, ed.

But it's still interesting to compare the two.

[edhopper]

3. It is interesting

I would like to see a representation of an early stage of the painting. Rather than this finished looking one.

[KingCharlemagne]

10. Layperson here, but I was thinking it is the

artistic analogue to a palimpsest, alto I'm not sure if that is how real artists working with oils would work.

[edhopper]

13. Painters will scrape off parts as the work

or painting over areas they want to change.

Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa over 14 years, so that there were layers under layers is not surprising.

The connotation here that there was a finished and different painting underneath is misleading.

[2naSalit]

14. I agree.

Worked with oils once upon a time and there is a process in creating the overall image that has to be built upon which can involved removal or covering an element in the picture. There is also a part of the process where guidelines are drawn in by various means as placeholders... that's where I suspect this underneath image came from. The fact that it took so many years to complete this project, I can imagine that this was the "placeholder image" for some time.

[Blue_Tires]

4. No secret coded messages or math equations??

[pinboy3niner]

5. "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine"

[Blue_Tires]

6. brilliant...

[trumad]

7. They did the same with a Trump image.

[cascadiance]

8. An earlier "layer" of a photoshop rendition of Trump here...

[Stardust]

12. LOL'd!

[Javaman]

9. Mona lets her hair down LOL nt

[csziggy]

11. The technology they are using for this exploration is amazing

The Smithsonian Channel program The DaVinci Detective details one man's investigation of some of the paintings of DaVinci and the methods he developed to discover new information about them.

There are several clips from the program on this page:

One of the only real-life characters in Dan Brown's bestseller "The Da Vinci Code," Maurizio Seracini is a controversial scientist on the trail of two fascinating unsolved mysteries. For thirty years, he has searched for a lost Leonardo Da Vinci mural unseen since the 1540s. Along the way, he has uncovered a series of magnificent Da Vinci drawings that were hidden for years. Follow along with the Smithsonian Channel as all of the clues fall into place.
http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/shows/the-da-vinci-detective/0/137976

Another clip from the program:

National Geographic also made a documentary about Maurizio Seracini: