"Mona Lisa" in a composite color-coded elevation
level and contour map
Researchers of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) announced their
findings of the first 3D images of the masterpiece, using a complex laser
scanner, at a news conference in Ottawa.
"This is the 'Mona Lisa' as we have never seen her before," said NRC
president Pierre Coulombe.
A team of NRC researchers had traveled to Paris in October 2004 to conduct
the research on probably the Louvre Museum's most viewed painting, at the
request of the French state museum agency Centre de Recherche et de Restauration
des Musees de France (CRRMF).
The 3D scans revealed that the woman with the enigmatic smile was originally
painted with her hair tied back in a bun, even though today it appears loose on
her shoulders.
The revelation settles an old controversy because only girls or women of bad
virtue wore their hair loose in 16th century Italy, said CRRMF project leader
Bruno Mottin, and the real Mona Lisa was a woman of social stature.
NRC scientist Marc Rioux examining the virtual 3-D
model of the "Mona Lisa"
One of her garments, similar to fashions that pregnant or nursing
women wore in this period, was also lost under yellow varnish and no longer
visible to the naked eye, infrared scans showed.
"This is something that had never been seen until now," Mottin said.
The real Mona Lisa had three children. Da Vinci was commissioned by wealthy
Florentine businessman Francesco del Giocondo to paint his wife between 1503 and
1506 after the birth of their second child, but he kept it and worked on it
until his death, likely changing her hair and other features.
In the original "Mona Lisa," the subject gripped her chair more tightly, and
she is not resting against the back of her chair, as some believed, but sitting
upright, scans showed.
Researchers also gleaned insights about the Da Vinci's painting technique,
including his sfumato or smoke technique of soft, heavily shaded modeling, said
Mottin.
"There is no special mystery in the painting like in (Dan Brown's book) 'The
Da Vinci Code,'" he said. "But, in that painting, Leonardo tried to capture the
essence of life ... It embodies all his skills ... That is the true mystery
we've uncovered."
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