After 512 years! Hidden portrait 'found under Mona Lisa Painting',

 

After 512 years A french Scientist Pascal Cotte who has spent more than 10 years using the reflective light technology to analyse the painting, claimed there is a hidden portrait beneath the existing painting.

He claims the earlier portrait lies hidden underneath the surface of Leonardo's most celebrated artwork.
A reconstruction shows another image of a sitter looking off to the side.

 The Louvre Museum has declined to comment on his claims because it "was not part of the scientific team".

Instead of the famous, direct gaze of the painting which hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris, the image of the sitter also shows no trace of her enigmatic smile, which has intrigued art lovers for more than 500 years.

But Mr Cotte's claims are controversial and have divided opinion among Leonardo experts.

Will Gompertz, Arts Editor
I'm sceptical. It's perfectly common for an artist to overpaint an image as it is for a client who's commissioned that artist to ask for changes. So it's not surprising that there are those underpaintings on the Mona Lisa.
The data that the technology generates is open to interpretation, which needs to be analysed and corroborated by the academic and curatorial community, and not just an individual. I think the Louvre's decision not to make a comment is telling.
This is the world's most famous painting which, like a celebrity, always makes for a good story. But in this case I think caution is required.

The scientist, who is the co-founder of Lumiere Technology in Paris, was given access to the painting in 2004 by the Louvre.

He has pioneered a technique called Layer Amplification Method (LAM), which he used to analyse the Mona Lisa.

Image caption Light technology was used on the famous painting

  

It works by "projecting a series of intense lights" on to the painting, Mr Cotte said. A camera then takes measurements of the lights' reflections and from those measurements, Mr Cotte said he is able to reconstruct what has happened between the layers of the paint.

The Mona Lisa has been the subject of several scientific examinations over more than half a century. More recent techniques include infrared inspections and multi-spectral scanning.

But Mr Cotte has claimed his technique is able to penetrate more deeply into the painting.

The Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, exhibited at the Louvre in Paris in 2007.

 
He said: "We can now analyse exactly what is happening inside the layers of the paint and we can peel like an onion all the layers of the painting. We can reconstruct all the chronology of the creation of the painting."

Mr Cotte announced the findings of his latest research at a press conference in Shanghai on Tuesday.

They will be included in an exhibition, Da Vinci - The Genius, which features displays of his research on the Mona Lisa over the last 11 years.

The show has travelled around the world and opens in Shanghai this week.

The Secrets of the Mona Lisa is on BBC Two at 21:00 GMT on 9 December.


Sources: BBC News