The large drawing, known as the Monna Vanna, which has been part of a large collection of Renaissance art at the Conde Museum north of the French capital since 1862, has until now been attributed only to the Florentine master’s studio, but not himself.
However, after a series of tests at the Louvre Museum in Paris, experts now have strong reasons to believe that Leonardo worked on both.
Paris Louvre Müzesinde uzmanlar, Monna Vanna adı verilen Da Vinci’ye ait bir tablonun Mona Lisa’nın çıplak bir çalışması olduğunu öne sürdü. pic.twitter.com/RF0GoGtRdM
— dokuz8HABER (@dokuz8haber) 29 сентября 2017 г.
"It is not a pale copy. We are looking at something which was worked on in parallel with the Mona Lisa at the end of Leonardo's life, museum curator Mathieu Deldicque told reporters, adding that “it is almost certainly a preparatory work for an oil painting.”
He also said that the hands and body on both the Monna Vanna and the Mona Lisa are almost identical and that both portraits are almost the same size.
“The hatching on the top of the drawing near the head was done by a right-handed person. Leonardo drew with his left hand,” Louvre conservation expert Bruno Mottin said.
Analyse de la Joconde nue au @c2rmf avec Bruno Mottin, conservateur du @c2rmf et @mathieudeldicqu conservateur du @chantillydomain pic.twitter.com/alMMSu09nP
— Domaine de Chantilly (@chantillydomain) 28 сентября 2017 г.
“It is a job that is going to take some time,” he added.
Art experts hope that they will be able to figure out the sketch’s author before the Chantilly Museum holds an exhibition in 2019 to mark the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death.
