Nude ‘Mona Lisa’ likely a Da Vinci too

Paris:

Nude ‘Mona Lisa’ likely a Da Vinci 

A nude drawing that bears a striking resemblance to the “Mona Lisa” was done in Leonardo da Vinci’s studio and may be the work of the master himself, a French museum said Monday.


Experts at the Louvre in Paris have been examining a charcoal drawing known as the “Monna Vanna” which has long been attributed to the Renaissance painter’s studio.

But the charcoal preparatory work for a painting of a semi-nude woman, held at the Conde Museum at Chantilly, may now have to be reclassified. “There is a very strong possibility that Leonardo did most of the drawing,” Mathieu Deldicque, a curator at the Paris museum, said.

“It is a work of very great quality done by a great artist,” added Deldicque, who initiated a investigation over several months by historians and scientific specialists.

The large drawing has been held since 1862 in the huge collection of Renaissance art at the Conde Museum, once the home of one of France’s oldest noble families.

“It is almost certainly a preparatory work for an oil painting,” Deldicque said, with the hands and body identical to the “Mona Lisa”.

Microscopic examinations have shown it was drawn from the top left towards the bottom right — which points to a left-handed artist. Leonardo is the most famous lefthanded painter in history.