See What the Original Mona Lisa Likely Looked Like

If you want to see the Mona Lisa in real life, your first thought may not be to head to the Pra­do. But accord­ing to a school of thought that has emerged in recent years, the Mona Lisa in Madrid has a greater claim to artis­tic faith­ful­ness than the one in Paris. That’s because researchers have dis­cov­ered com­pelling evi­dence sug­gest­ing that what was long con­sid­ered just anoth­er copy of the most famous paint­ing in the world was­n’t made after Leonar­do had com­plet­ed the orig­i­nal, but con­cur­rent­ly with the orig­i­nal, prob­a­bly by one of his stu­dents. Over half a mil­len­ni­um, in this view, the Prado’s Mona Lisa has retained the col­ors and details the Lou­vre’s has lost, result­ing in its preser­va­tion of Leonar­do’s inten­tions today.

Infrared pho­tog­ra­phy has even revealed, says the nar­ra­tor of the new Inspi­rag­gio video above, that both paint­ings “share the same changes in the orig­i­nal sketch. For years, it has been known that Leonar­do made small cor­rec­tions to the shape of the Mona Lisa’s hands, adjust­ments to the line of the eyes, and sub­tle mod­i­fi­ca­tions to the curve of the face,” the very same cor­rec­tions that were found in the new­ly exam­ined copy.

Unlike oth­er copies, the Prado’s ver­sion uses “incred­i­bly expen­sive pig­ments” such as lapis lazuli—imported from Afghanistan—for the sky. This only became evi­dent dur­ing the 2012 restora­tion, when the back­ground, long hid­den under a thick lay­er of black, was final­ly uncov­ered.

There­after, the Pra­do Mona Lisa was exhib­it­ed along­side the Mona Lisa at the Lou­vre in a tem­po­rary exhi­bi­tion. This gave the pub­lic the chance to see both how sim­i­lar they look, and how dif­fer­ent. Though unde­ni­ably La Gio­con­da, the copy does­n’t seem quite “right,” in large part because it has­n’t dete­ri­o­rat­ed in the man­ner or to the degree of the orig­i­nal. Leonar­do paint­ed it on a poplar wood pan­el that has giv­en way to count­less small cracks, and the lay­ers of yel­low var­nish added over the cen­turies have dark­ened to give the whole image a sepia tone. The result, of course, is the tex­ture and col­or­ing we’ve come to asso­ciate with the Mona Lisa by cease­less expo­sure to her in pop­u­lar cul­ture, even if we’ve nev­er seen any ver­sion hang­ing in any muse­um. If the Prado’s copy real­ly does reflect Leonar­do’s orig­i­nal artis­tic choic­es, we can put at least one hot­ly debat­ed mat­ter to rest: the lady real­ly did have eye­brows.

Relat­ed con­tent:

What Makes Leonardo’s Mona Lisa a Great Paint­ing?: An Expla­na­tion in 15 Min­utes

Did Leonar­do da Vin­ci Paint a First Mona Lisa Before the Mona Lisa?

How Did the Mona Lisa Become the World’s Most Famous Paint­ing?: It’s Not What You Think

Orig­i­nal Por­trait of the Mona Lisa Found Beneath the Paint Lay­ers of da Vinci’s Mas­ter­piece

An Immac­u­late Copy of Leonardo’s The Last Sup­per Dig­i­tized by Google: View It in High Res­o­lu­tion Online

A Chi­nese Painter Spe­cial­iz­ing in Copy­ing Van Gogh Paint­ings Trav­els to Ams­ter­dam & Sees Van Gogh’s Mas­ter­pieces for the First Time

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.