Is The Isleworth Mona Lisa Legit?

Allegedly painted 10 years before the Mona Lisa that hangs in the Lourve Museum, controversy surrounds this painting of a "younger" Mona Lisa:

The Earlier Mona Lisa depicts a woman in her 20s, so says the caption.



16 December 2014 Last updated at 05:13 ET

Disputed 'earlier Mona Lisa' goes on display in Singapore

A portrait of a younger Mona Lisa, which its owners claim was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci before his more famous version, has gone on display.

The painting is being exhibited in public for the first time in Singapore.

Its owners say expert tests and analysis confirm Da Vinci painted it 10 years before the better-known version.

But its authenticity is disputed. Da Vinci expert Martin Kemp said it was "just another copy of the Mona Lisa, an unfinished one, and no more than that".

Prof Kemp, emeritus professor of the history of art at Oxford University and the author of several books on Da Vinci, said: "The fact it's being shown in Singapore and is not getting an outing in a serious art museum [or] gallery is significant in itself.

The painting, he said, was "routine in handling". He continued: "Leonardo's landscapes always seethed with a sense of life. It's inert.

"The drapery is inert, and what Leonardo did was he could always give the sense that even something static like drapery had a life to it, a vitality and an inherent movement in it, and this is a heavy-handed, static picture."

But the Switzerland-based Mona Lisa Foundation, which manages the painting, says historical evidence, other expert opinions and carbon dating and further scientific tests point to its authenticity.

"We feel these latest discoveries and new scientific analysis just carried out leave little doubt that it is Leonardo's work," auctioneer and Mona Lisa Foundation vice-president David Feldman told the Reuters news agency.

"The vast majority of experts now either agree with us or accept that there is a strong case for our thesis."

The foundation says Da Vinci created the work in 1503, 10 years ahead of the Mona Lisa, but left it unfinished.

It was later acquired by an English aristocrat in the late 1770s.

The earlier Mona Lisa was discovered in 1913 by an art collector while visiting a British aristocrat in Somerset.

Taking it back to his studio in Isleworth, south west London, for restoration, it was the dubbed the Isleworth Mona Lisa for its close resemblance to Da Vinci's most famous painting, which hangs in The Louvre gallery in Paris.

The artwork will be on show until February at the Arts House in Singapore's Old Chambers of Parliament, before touring Hong Kong, China, South Korea and Australia.

Da Vinci In The News - I

A second article on another famous Leonardo Da Vinci piece is posted separately.

Oldest Copy of 'Mona Lisa' Painted Alongside Original

By Jeanna Bryner | LiveScience.com – 8 hrs ago

This is the Prado's now proven to be copy of da Vinci's Mona Lisa.  I think I like this one a lot more! She looks prettier and younger than the painting we're all used to seeing!

A copy of Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" was painted by a pupil or follower of the artist at about the same time as the original was created, and is now considered the oldest known copy of the enigmatic piece of work, scientists announced this week.

The painting was previously held in the Spanish royal collections, before it was sent to Madrid in 1819 when the Museo del Prado there was founded. Researchers studying the artwork think it is the painting referred to in 1666 in an inventory of the palace Alcázar in Seville as a female portrait associated with da Vinci. They suspect the copy may have reached Spain in the early part of the 17th century, according to Miguel Falomir Faus, the Prado's curator of Italian Painting up to 1700.

The painting originally received little notice because its sitter is posed in front of a plain black background, not a landscape as in da Vinci's "Mona Lisa." But as conservators were restoring the painting for its inclusion in a da Vinci exhibition at the Louvre in Paris scheduled to open March 29, they found that the black varnish obscured a copy of da Vinci's dreamy countryside. This Mona Lisa copy sheds light on details of the mysterious woman posing in the painting, including the cloth covering her breast, the semi-transparent veil around her shoulders and the shape of the chair. The copy also shows more clearly the landscape in the background.

Previous research has suggested da Vinci did indeed give Mona Lisa eyebrows, though they have since disappeared. That same study, in which an engineer scanned the original painting with various wavelengths of light, also suggested the great artist first painted fingers on the sitter's left hand in a slightly different position.

to be complete in about three weeks. The discovery was announced at the meeting of the Prado's Royal Board of Trustees.

A Nude Mona Lisa?

Well, judge for yourself... From the Telegraph.co.uk Naked Mona Lisa goes on show A naked portrayal of the Mona Lisa, which was once attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, forms one of the highlights of the biggest exhibition ever held on the Renaissance genius. By Nick Squires in Rome Published: 7:04PM BST 15 Jun 2009 The mysterious portrait of a semi-nude woman, looking straight at the viewer with an enigmatic smile and with her hands crossed, bears a remarkable resemblance to Leonardo's world famous painting. Hidden for almost a century within the panelled walls of a library, the portrait appears to have been inspired by the Mona Lisa, which hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris and was painted by the Italian master in the early 1500s. It will form one of the centrepieces of a new exhibition at the Museo Ideale in the Tuscan town of Vinci, near Florence, where Leonardo was born in 1452. "The frontal look, the position of the hands, the spatial conception of the landscape, with columns at the sides, show a clear link with the Mona Lisa's iconographic theme," Alessandro Vezzosi, director of the museum, told Discovery News. The naked portrait once belonged to Napoleon's ambassador to the Vatican, Cardinal Joseph Fesch, and was rediscovered after being hidden inside the walls of his private library for nearly a century. Art experts believe the portrait of the topless woman was probably not painted by da Vinci, but that the artist may have painted a similar picture, now lost, which then inspired one of his imitators to create this work. "I think it is very likely that Leonardo da Vinci conceived a naked Mona Lisa," said Carlo Pedretti, a world authority on da Vinci. The exhibition, which opened at the weekend and lasts until Sept 30, consists of more than 5,000 works spanning 500 years which were inspired by the Mona Lisa, including paintings, sculptures and new media images. The exhibition will look at why the painting, known in Italy as La Gioconda, became such a famous icon. It will explore the history of the painting, including the possible identity of the woman who posed for Leonardo, and the latest scientific research into the portrait. See also Nude Mona-Lisa Like Painting Found at the Huffington Post, which has a little bit more information not so sensationalized. Interestingly, among the comments it was pointed out that this painting could be worth twice as much as the actual Mona Lisa! It's amazing to me that this inferior painting could potentially be worth more than the Mona Lisa. Geez.