8 Hidden Secrets In The Mona Lisa
5. Eyebrows And Eyelashes
It's used as part of the argument for why Mona Lisa might have been a lady of the night rather than than a noblewoman, but the lack of eyebrows or lashes on the famous portrait may have a much more prosaic explanation. Plus we're pretty sure she wasn't a prostitute, or da Vinci's mum, because both of those would be pretty weird. And the comparisons between da Vinci's own self portraits and Mona Lisa's mug aren't all that convincing. So what's the deal with that super smooth face? Why would she not have any of the usual facial features that you see in every other person who hasn't put their head really close to open flames? Here's your answer: she does.
They're just hidden. Hidden secrets, see? Pascal Cotte, a French engineer and inventor, decided to do his own analysis of the ages-old painting with some modern, high-tech gadgets that even the famously prophetic Leonardo couldn't have conceived of. Pascal took a high definition digital camera and took a few snaps during a trip to the Louvre, discovering that da Vinci may actually have originally painted brows and lashes on the Mona Lisa, only for them to be painted over later for some reason. Magnifying her famous visage 24 times, Cotte says he found a single brushstroke of a single hair above the left eye.
His explanation was that the eyebrow hairs could have faded or been inadvertently erased by a poor attempt to clean the painting, and that he'd uncovered proof her hands were originally painted in a slightly different position. Giorgio Vasari's Lives of Artists - written around the time da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa - describes her as having thick eyebrows, which also suggests that they could have been accidentally removed. Or just that he wasn't paying attention when he was shown the finished portrait. Either/or.