Who Painted The Mona Lisa?

Who actually painted the Mona Lisa?

The Mona Lisa : painting of da Vinci located at the Louvre The Mona Lisa painting is one of the most emblematic portraits in the history of art, where is located at the Louvre, Painted by Leonardo da Vinci in the 16th century, it joined the collections of the court of France before being added to the works on display at the Louvre Museum. Book your online.

Who painted Mona Lisa and why?

The tumultuous history of the Mona Lisa Being one of the most famous paintings in the world is not without danger. Subject of all attention since its creation at the beginning of the 16th century, the Mona Lisa has known a tumultuous life, made of travels, theft, and lusts.

But isn’t it what contributes to the success of a masterpiece ? Made by Leonardo da Vinci, the most famous painter of his time, around 1503, the painting was commissioned by a rich Italian merchant, Francesco del Giocondo, who wanted to place a portrait of his wife, Lisa, in their new home. But doubt remains today on this origin The painting was probably incomplete when Leonardo da Vinci left Florence for Milan in 1506, then, invited by François I ten years later, he took the work with him to France.

Like its identity, the story of the Mona Lisa and its journey to Paris remains obscure. It is not known if Francesco del Giocondo once had the pleasure of seeing the portrait, nor how it has entered the royal collection. When the French Revolution created the Louvre Museum, the painting, hanging on Versailles, was not retained to be presented to the shown.

What is the real story behind the Mona Lisa?

Title and subject – A margin note by Agostino Vespucci (visible at right) discovered in a book at Heidelberg University, Dated 1503, it states that Leonardo was working on a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo, The title of the painting, which is known in English as Mona Lisa, is based on the presumption that it depicts Lisa del Giocondo, although her likeness is uncertain.

• Renaissance art historian Giorgio Vasari wrote that ” Leonardo undertook to paint, for Francesco del Giocondo, the portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife.” Monna in Italian is a polite form of address originating as ma donna —similar to Ma’am, Madam, or my lady in English.
• This became madonna, and its contraction monna,

The title of the painting, though traditionally spelled Mona in English, is spelled in Italian as Monna Lisa ( mona being a vulgarity in Italian), but this is rare in English. Lisa del Giocondo was a member of the Gherardini family of Florence and Tuscany, and the wife of wealthy Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo.

The painting is thought to have been commissioned for their new home, and to celebrate the birth of their second son, Andrea. The Italian name for the painting, La Gioconda, means ‘jocund’ (‘happy’ or ‘jovial’) or, literally, ‘the jocund one’, a pun on the feminine form of Lisa’s married name, Giocondo.

In French, the title La Joconde has the same meaning. Vasari’s account of the Mona Lisa comes from his biography of Leonardo published in 1550, 31 years after the artist’s death. It has long been the best-known source of information on the provenance of the work and identity of the sitter.

Leonardo’s assistant Salaì, at his death in 1524, owned a portrait which in his personal papers was named la Gioconda, a painting bequeathed to him by Leonardo. That Leonardo painted such a work, and its date, were confirmed in 2005 when a scholar at Heidelberg University discovered a marginal note in a 1477 printing of a volume by ancient Roman philosopher Cicero,

Dated October 1503, the note was written by Leonardo’s contemporary Agostino Vespucci, This note likens Leonardo to renowned Greek painter Apelles, who is mentioned in the text, and states that Leonardo was at that time working on a painting of Lisa del Giocondo.

1. In response to the announcement of the discovery of this document, Vincent Delieuvin, the Louvre representative, stated “Leonardo da Vinci was painting, in 1503, the portrait of a Florentine lady by the name of Lisa del Giocondo.
2. About this we are now certain.
3. Unfortunately, we cannot be absolutely certain that this portrait of Lisa del Giocondo is the painting of the Louvre.” The catalogue raisonné Leonardo da Vinci (2019) confirms that the painting probably depicts Lisa del Giocondo, with Isabella d’Este being the only plausible alternative.

Scholars have developed several alternative views, arguing that Lisa del Giocondo was the subject of a different portrait, and identifying at least four other paintings referred to by Vasari as the Mona Lisa, Several other people have been proposed as the subject of the painting, including Isabella of Aragon, Cecilia Gallerani, Costanza d’Avalos, Duchess of Francavilla, Pacifica Brandano/Brandino, Isabela Gualanda, Caterina Sforza, Bianca Giovanna Sforza, Salaì, and even Leonardo himself.

Why is Mona Lisa so famous?

The iconic painting by Leonardo Da Vinci has been one of the most talked about pieces of art for decades now. I, just like any other person, got caught up in the hype of it and went to Paris to see it in the Louvre Museum, Much has changed over the years and now when I am becoming an artist of my own, I started wondering what exactly is so special about the painting.

• Let’s face it, there are better paintings out there such as The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh and Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli.
• Leonardo also isn’t the only famous painter of his time.
• His work was always compared with his competitors such as Michelangelo and Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino.
• Painted around 1503–1506, the painting has the most expensive insurance policy in history, valued at $100 million in 1962, equivalent to $650 million in 2018.

When Leonardo painted the Mona Lisa, he would have never imagined it to be hanging in a French museum behind a bulletproof glass five centuries later. I remember queuing up to see the painting at the museum and struggled to catch a glimpse because of the crowd that was surrounding it.

At first, it appears to be very intimidating — with the bulletproof glass guarding it. However, when I went close to it, I noticed it is a very subdued portrait of an ordinary woman who is sitting on a chair wearing a thin black veil and a soft smile on her face. To a viewer’s eyes who does not understand artistic techniques, it is a very simple painting.

The much talked about veil on Mona Lisa ‘s head is not as apparent as it is talked about. In the 19th century, Leonardo was considered not just a good painter but also a great inventor. The Mona Lisa however, picked popularity after writers of the 19th century started showing interest in the painting — mainly for the art technique called SFUMATO that Leonardo used to make this painting standout from others.

How much does Mona Lisa cost?

What is the value of the Mona Lisa? The Mona Lisa is priceless. Any speculative price (some say over a billion dollars!) would probably be so high that not one person would be able or willing to purchase and maintain the painting. Moreover, the would probably never sell it.

1. The museum attracts millions of visitors each year, most of whom come for the Mona Lisa, so a steady stream of revenue may be more lucrative in the long run than a single payment.
2. Indeed, the museum considers the Mona Lisa irreplaceable and thus spends its resources on preventive measures to maintain the portrait rather than on expensive insurance that can only offer mere money as a replacement.

: What is the value of the Mona Lisa?

Is the Mona Lisa smiling?

Scientific Reports If the “Mona Lisa” was showing a few teeth, Leonardo da Vinci’s 16th-century masterpiece might not be quite as famous as it is. That’s because the portrait, believed to be of Lisa Gherardini, who was married to Florentine cloth merchant Francesco del Giocondo, depicts a half smile that has gone down as an enigma for the ages.

1. Look at it long enough and the portrait seems to express several emotions at once—happiness, tenderness, annoyance, a melancholy sadness, maybe even some gas pains? But new research shows that art lovers may be looking a little too hard—most people perceive the “Mona Lisa” as just looking happy.
2. Laura Geggel at LiveScience reports that researchers at the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health in Freiburg, Germany, conducted two experiments on “Mona Lisa” viewers.

First, they showed participants the original “Mona Lisa” along with eight variations of the painting with the curvature of the mouth altered into happy and sad configurations. Those nine total paintings were shown in random order to participants 30 times, with the volunteers reporting whether the face was happy or sad and their confidence in that judgement.

• Geggel reports that the 12 participants identified the happy faces more quickly and more accurately than the sad expressions.
• The original version of the painting was placed in the happy category by the participants close to 100 percent of the time.
• We were very surprised to find out that the original ‘Mona Lisa’ is almost always seen as being happy,” Jürgen Kornmeier, lead author of study says in a press release,

“That calls the common opinion among art historians into question.” Scientific Reports But that wasn’t the only aim of the study. In a second experiment the researchers drilled down on the sad images. Using the original as the happiest expression, they presented their subjects with seven intermediate versions of the “Mona Lisa” looking glum, including three from the previous experiment.

What they found is that the participants rated the images they’d previously seen as sadder than they did in the first experiment. In other words, in the presence of other sad image, the participants found all the images sadder overall. “The data show that our perception, for instance of whether something is sad or happy, is not absolute but adapts to the environment with astonishing speed,” says Kornmeier says in the press release.

The study appears in the journal Scientific Reports, That’s not to say the opinions of a dozen German research volunteers will overturn centuries of speculation. Other research indicates that da Vinci may actually be trolling the viewer and that the “Mona Lisa” uses an optical illusion developed by da Vinci that’s been dubbed the “uncatchable smile.” The illusion is that when looked at as a whole, the subject appears to be smiling.

1. When the viewer focuses on the mouth, however, it looks downturned,
2. Given da Vinci’s mastery of the technique, and its subsequent use in the “Mona Lisa,” it is quite conceivable that the ambiguity of the effect was intentional,” Alessandro Soranzo expert in visual perception from Sheffield Hallam University tells K.N.

Smith at Discover, However, there is no evidence that da Vinci developed the enigmatic smile on purpose. Then there’s the purported “Isleworth Mona Lisa,” which some people believe is an earlier version of the painting, depicting Lisa Gherardini about a decade earlier.

What religion is Leonardo da Vinci?

Philosophy and religion – There is not much firsthand information about Leonardo’s religious inclination, but most historians have deemed him as Catholic, Leonardo referred to God as a kind of supreme being. Leonardo could be described as a spiritual metaphysician, who was interested in Greek philosophy such as that of Plato and Aristotle,

He describes friars as the “fathers of the people who know all secrets by inspiration” and calls books such as the Bible “supreme truth”, while also jesting that “Many who hold the faith of the Son only build temples in the name of the Mother.” Leonardo argues against the myth of a universal flood (as in the story of Noah ), doubting that so much water could have evaporated away from the Earth.

In an early example of ichnology, he explains that the fossils of marine shells would have been scattered in such a deluge, and not gathered in groups, which were in fact left at various times on mountains in Lombardy, Leonardo discredited pagan mythology as well, saying that gods the size of planets would appear as mere specks of light in the universe.

How many times Mona Lisa painted?

One of a kind? Actually, there’s at least four different versions painted by Leonardo da Vinci and his students. But the one we all know and love is at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. The others can be found at the Prado Museum and in numerous private collections.

How long did Mona Lisa take to paint?

Museum Quality Fine Art Reproduction Paintings and Portraits Hi Everyone, this is the final part of our Mona Lisa question week. So how long did the Mona Lisa take to paint? This is an interesting question because nobody really knows. It has been established that the Mona Lisa was started in 1503.

• Vasari, Da Vinci’s biographer and Renaissance commentator said the Mona Lisa after 4 years of work was still not finished.
• Fine art reproduction painting of the Mona Lisa by Fabulous Masterpieces If you would like to buy our hand painted fine art reproduction painting of the Mona Lisa please visit – ” Leonardo undertook to paint for Francesco del Giocondo a portrait of Mona Lisa his wife, but having spent four years upon it, left it unfinished.

This work now belongs to King Francis of France, and whoever wishes to see how art can imitate nature may learn from this head “. The Louvre says 1503 – 1519 so 16 years. We know he started the Mona Lisa in 1503 and Da Vinci died in 1519. We know Da Vinci t ook it with him to France where he may have continued intermittently working on it up up until his death, hence why the Louvre says 1503 – 1519.

• Some people say 12 years, some say 4 years, some say 7 years.
• Some people say it took 12 years for Da Vinci to just paint the lips of the Mona Lisa.
• However whatever you choose to believe, the fact is no one knows with absolute certainty.
• Da Vinci was also known to start and stop and start again and leave works unfinished and do multiple things in the same time period so it is hard to say.

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Why did Mona Lisa not smile?

Abstract – The Mona Lisa, painted by Leonardo Da Vinci, 1503, pictures a smile that has been long the subject of conjecture. It is believed, however, that the Mona Lisa does not smile; she wears an expression common to people who have lost their front teeth.

Why did the Mona Lisa smile?

It’s got drama – Then, in the 20th century, the Mona Lisa went from painting to pop idol. First, the journal of a visitor to Leonardo’s workshop in 1517 came to light, clearly implying he saw not one but two very similar Mona Lisa paintings, which suggested that the portrait in the Louvre might not be of Lisa del Giocondo, but a mysterious someone else.

1. Then, in 1911 the painting was stolen from the Louvre; among the suspects questioned were poet Guillaume Apollinaire and Pablo Picasso,
2. The Mona Lisa was finally recovered in 1913 – the same year that the “second” Mona Lisa was discovered in an English estate.
3. Appearing to be an earlier portrait of del Giocondo, the ” Isleworth Mona Lisa ” still has experts bickering over authenticity a century later.) The 21st century (and the novel The Da Vinci Code ) has only amped up her supposed enigmas, making her an occult mystery, shrouded in conspiracy theories and buried in fake news.

That’s the gist. But that doesn’t really explain the painting’s appeal – she doesn’t really symbolise the breadth of Leonardo’s interests and ideas (about mechanics, astronomy, architecture, optics and more). To really understand the true importance of the Mona Lisa, you have to go back to the old question: why is she smiling? But the only way this works is by contemplating it not as a question, but as an answer. The Isleworth Mona Lisa. Photograph: Denis Balibouse/Reuters What this little gesture did was huge: it brought art to life. In the centuries leading up to the Renaissance, paintings were generally created as idealised images, often religious, to be contemplated and revered.

• The Mona Lisa was a real woman who with a smile initiated a dialogue with the viewer that had not existed before; it changed the very nature of the relationship between art and audience.
• With that one smile, Leonardo had imbued a work of art with a conceptual stroke of what’s now called “genius”.
• So, it’s not why she’s smiling that’s important, it’s that she’s smiling.

Not as exciting as a code in her clothing, but more useful: the trick of using a question as a clue and a key can be surprisingly useful. Take one of the queries that has vexed humanity for centuries. What is the meaning of life? Inspiring films, self-help books and clever cartoons have all taken a crack at it, to no avail.

• So if we consider the question as an endless, fruitless quest, we might reasonably assume that meaning is something we care an awful lot about.
• And it is.
• We need meaning urgently; we seek it out, from the physical environment we negotiate all day long to the facial expressions in those we encounter, and it labels thousands or even millions of things before you even know it’s happened.

The human brain is in a constant state of what Travis Proulx, a senior lecturer at Cardiff University, has called “meaning maintenance”. All these meanings gets instantly arranged in a staggeringly huge personal cosmology of meanings that make up your reality (just like in The Matrix).

The perceptual psychologist James Gibson called all these labelled meanings ” affordances “, since they all afford you different experiences and relationships. The more they afford you, the more meaning they hold for you. That is why we love a nice, juicy mystery that engages us with a tantalising trail of un-affordances all leading up to the killer’s climactic unveiling.

Things that don’t add up get our attention; we want everything to square. The train is oddly late. Why? Your coworker made a weird remark. Why? Questioning something as big as the meaning of life just shorts out the system. Pushing “all of life” and “your life” into one concept is way too massive and nebulous to be coherent – so the system freezes.

Meanwhile, all your emotions about your life and yourself – what you could be, what you could have been. Together, the freeze and the feelings give the illusion that something is really missing. At the same time, hearing an answer that seems too simple and unremarkable for the size of the question feels unfair, unjust, somehow.

That’s so much the case with the Mona Lisa that it could be called the Mona Lisa paradox. The problem is that the importance of her contribution gets lost. Finished in 1517 – the same year Martin Luther published his famous screed against the Church – the Mona Lisa is not an idealised Madonna, but a real woman recreated by a real man.

• So she also shifts away from Rome, away from God as the only creator.
• Back then, the verb “create” was only something God did.) In her modest realness, the Mona Lisa is a colossus – not only the face of Renaissance humanism, but a new standard for art as much an intellectual exercise as an aesthetic one.

Those are the mundane truths. The Mona Lisa smiles because she was painted smiling. We seek the meaning of life because we seek the meaning of everything. It brings to mind the wickedly dark-humoured writings of Muriel Spark (born 100 years ago this month).

How old was Mona Lisa when she was painted?

The woman in the painting is thought to be Lisa Gherandini Giocondo who was about 25 at the time of the painting.

Why is the Mona Lisa in France and not in Italy?

George Clooney calls for Mona Lisa to be returned to Italy George Clooney has claimed that France should return the Mona Lisa to Italy during a promotional tour for his new film The Monuments Men,. The comments, which follow Clooney’s repeated claims over the past week that Britain should return the Parthenon marbles to Greece, were reportedly made in Milan at a press event during which the film’s cast posed in front of the famed masterpiece The Last Supper.

1. The film’s director was joined by co-stars Matt Damon, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Jean Dujardin and John Goodman for the event.
2. Da Vinci’s is currently held in the Louvre in Paris, where it has hung since 1797.
3. It was acquired by French king Francis I shortly after completion around 1518 and has only been shown in Italy once, in 1913, following its theft by an Italian patriot in 1911.

Italian authorities have regularly petitioned for the return of the world’s most famous painting, most recently in 2012 ahead of the 100th anniversary of its restitution to, Their Gallic counterparts have so far refused on the grounds that the work of art is too delicate to be moved.

Clooney’s reported remarks are said to have returned the matter to the public arena and sparked new calls in Italy for the return of the painting. The actor-director’s initial comments about the Parthenon marbles came at the Berlin film festival on Saturday while promoting, the story of an Allied team trying to save art from the Nazis.

“I think you have a very good case to make about your artefacts,” Clooney told a Greek reporter. “Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing if they were returned. I think that is a good idea. That would be a very fair and very nice thing. I think it is the right thing to do.” He later repeated similar views in London and was backed by fellow cast members.

1. London mayor Boris Johnson has since bizarrely compared Clooney to Hitler for making the comments.
2. Someone urgently needs to restore George Clooney’s marbles,”,
3. Here he is plugging a film about looted Nazi art without realising that Goring himself had plans to plunder the British Museum.
4. And where were the Nazis going to send the Elgin marbles? To Athens! This Clooney is advocating nothing less than the Hitlerian agenda for London’s cultural treasures.

He should stuff the Hollywood script and stick to history.” : George Clooney calls for Mona Lisa to be returned to Italy

How old was Mona Lisa when she died?

Da Vinci at work – Leonardo da Vinci painted the portrait of the beautiful Florentine woman, 26 years younger than him, between 1503 and 1506. The young woman would therefore be 24 years old at the time of the painting. However, other sources agree that the portrait was painted between 1513 and 1516, depicting Lisa Gherardini at the age of 34. Depiction of Leonardo da Vinci painting the Mona Lisa, Cesare Maccari (1863) The portrait was acquired by Francis I in 1519. It should be remembered that he was the friend and protector of Leonardo da Vinci until the latter’s death. Today exhibited in the Louvre Museum in Paris, Lisa Gherardini has been given a reputation and an eternal idolisation.

Documents found in a convent suggest that Lisa Gherardini died on 15 July 1542 at the age of 63. Other experts agree that Da Vinci’s model could have lived until 1551, when she was 71. A longevity record for the time! But can we really say that Mona Lisa is dead? Knowing that her memory will live forever on the canvas of the great Renaissance master? Find out more about Leonardo da Vinci’s career on,

: Who was Lisa Gherardini, the famous Mona Lisa?

Where is the Mona Lisa kept?

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5. From the ‘Mona Lisa’ to ‘The Wedding Feast at Cana’

Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, known as the Mona Lisa in the Salle des États Room 711, Denon wing, Level 1 The world’s most famous painting, the Mona Lisa, needs a space big enough to welcome its many admirers. It is therefore housed in the Louvre’s largest room, the Salle des États, which is also home to other remarkable Venetian paintings such as The Wedding Feast at Cana by Veronese.

What does Mona mean in English?

Mona – Baby Name Meaning, Origin and Popularity Popularity: 3900 Origin: Italian Meaning: noble or aristocratic Mona is a girl’s name of Italian origin. This name translates to “noble” and “aristocratic.” It is thought to be derived from the name Madonna, which is famously associated with the Virgin Mary in Christian theology.

You’ll also recognise the name from Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous portrait, the Mona Lisa. The name Mona can act as a tribute to your faith, your love of art, or simply a fondness for the undeniable elegance the name possesses. Not sure you have the perfect name? to add more baby names to your My Favorites list.

: Mona – Baby Name Meaning, Origin and Popularity

What do the French call the Mona Lisa?

Based on the mid-sixteenth century biography of Leonardo da Vinci by Giorgio Vasari, many historians believe the painting is a portrait of Madam Lisa Giocondo, wife of a wealthy Florentine. It is from Vasari that the painting received the name Mona Lisa, also known as La Gioconda in Italian or La Joconde in French. But Vasari published his book thirty-one years after Leonardo’s death, and he was known to fill in fact with fragments of fantasy. Before Vasari, the painting had been referred to as “a certain Florentine lady” and later, in the collection at Fontainebleau, as “a courtesan in a gauze veil.” There are many other theories about who the sitter might have been, based on bits of scattered evidence. But the panel is unsigned and undated, and although most portraits of the time included something to indicate the sitter’s family name or social status, no such emblem can be found in the Mona Lisa, Nor is there any record of a commission for the portrait among Leonardo’s papers. It is known that Leonardo worked and reworked the painting for over four years, carrying it with him during his travels and parting with it only at his death. If in fact it was commissioned, why was it not delivered to the patron who had commissioned it? No theory satisfactorily answers these questions. Some speculate that the Mona Lisa is not a portrait of one woman, but an artful composite of many, Leonardo’s idealization of all womanhood. Others suggest it may have been one of Da Vinci’s young male models in drag. Some even believe that the Mona Lisa is not a portrait at all, but instead what is known as a “finzione,” an invention of Leonardo’s extraordinary imagination.

What is the most expensive art?

Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci – Fine Art // Getty Images Price Paid for Painting : $450 million Salvator Mundi sold for a little over $450 million at a Christie’s auction in 2017 to an anonymous buyer. The New York Times reported the buyer was acting for a Saudi prince, Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan al-Saud—the painting has since been under the ownership of the Saudi Arabian culture ministry.

1. Salvator Mundi, translated to “Savior of the World,” is not only the world’s most expensive painting—it’s possibly the most controversial painting, as well.
2. Many scholars doubt that the work was entirely done by Leonardo da Vinci, citing the overall composition doesn’t align completely with da Vinci’s style.

One analysis conducted by the Louvre in 2018 concluded the picture slowly evolved with Leonardo adding the hands and arms later.2

Is Mona Lisa happy or sad?

If Mona Lisa doesn’t look happy to you, that might be because of your own mental state, according to scientists at the University of California, San Francisco. Our emotions change our perceptions of the world around us, they say, and that includes works of art.

If you see the Mona Lisa after you have just had a screaming fight with your husband, you’re going to see differently,” Erika Siegel, one of the researchers, told the Daily Mail, “But if you’re having the time of your life at the Louvre, you’re going to see the enigmatic smile.” The study is based on the theory that the brain is a predictive organ that looks to past experiences to know what to expect from the future.

In Siegel’s experiment, she showed 43 participants a series of faces, with two different images appearing before each eye. Everyone has a dominant eye, so faces shown to the non-dominant eye only register subconsciously. While the dominant eye was shown a face with a neutral expression, the non-dominant eye was presented with a variety of happy, angry, and neutral faces. Apprentice of Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa (ca.1503–16). Courtesy of the Museo del Prado. These findings are the latest in a large field of research into the Mona Lisa ‘s enigmatic expression over the years. In 2005, Dutch researchers used emotion recognition software and computer algorithms to find that the Mona Lisa ‘s smile was precisely 83 percent happy, nine percent disgusted, six percent fearful, two percent each angry and happy, and less than one person neutral.

• A 2017 study with human subjects reaffirmed these findings, with 97 percent of subjects judging the Mona Lisa to be happy,
• In 2015, British academics dubbed Leonardo DaVinci ‘s creation ” the uncatchable smile,” and claimed the expression’s subtlety was intentional, designed by the artist to be visible only from certain angles.

There’s also a theory that the Mona Lisa is smiling because she has syphilis, Meanwhile, a new study reported in Milenio found that a second copy of the painting at the Prado, may have been painted by the Spanish artist Fernando Yáñez de la Almedina, based on the discovery of hidden Spanish symbols, such as the face of a Moor and Catalan-style architecture, in the background.

Is Mona Lisa smile LGBTQ?

Mona Lisa smile ‘based on his gay lover’, art historian claims

was based on ‘s probable gay lover, an art historian has claimed.The famous portrait that hangs in the Louvre in Paris has undergone infra-red analysis to give the art world more insight into one of the world’s most renowned paintings. Following his examinations, Silvano Vinceti believes the artwork is an amalgamation of two models: a rich Florentine merchant’s wife, Lisa Gherardini, and da Vinci’s apprentice Gian Giacomo Caprotti, known to the artist as Salai, or Little Devil.

“The is androgynous – half man and half woman,” he told, explaining that he studied other paintings based on Salai and found striking similarities. “You see it particularly in Mona Lisa’s nose, her forehead and her smile. We’ve come up with an answer to a question that has divided scholars for years.

Who was the Mona Lisa based on?” © Royal Academy of Arts, London THE PRINCES CZARTORYSKI MUSEUM, CRACOW © The Royal Collection 2011, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II It is thought that Salai began working for da Vinci when he was around 10-years-old, after joining the artist’s household in 1490. He stayed for the next two decades.

Gherardini married Francesco del Giocondo, whose family owned an extravagant villa during the period in which da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa (between 1503 and 1506). Vinceti has been excavating a covent in Florence for four years with the aim of unearthing Gherardini’s remains.

As ever with artistic theories, Vinceti’s conclusions have not gone unchallenged. Martin Kemp, a leading da Vinci expert and professor emeritus of history of art at Trinity College, Oxford, has dismissed the claims as “a mishmash of known things, semi-known things and complete fantasy”. “The infra-red images do nothing to support the idea that Leonardo somehow painted a blend of Lisa Gherardini and Salai,” he said, adding that too little is known about Salai’s appearance.

“Giorgio Vasari (a contemporary painter and a chronicler of Renaissance artists) described him as a pretty boy with curly hair, but that was a standard type of the era,” he continued. “It featured in Leonardo’s work long before Salai came on the scene.” Popular theories about the Mona Lisa abound, with some art lovers claiming that a lost original featured the model nude.

Is Mona Lisa beautiful or not?

Mona Lisa isn’t all that pretty, according to the ancient Greeks Published: 10:26 BST, 1 November 2018 | Updated: 19:27 BST, 1 November 2018 Mona Lisa may not be as pretty as many art lovers like to think, according to research pioneered by the ancient Greeks.

• Her enigmatic smile may have bewitched critics and fans alike since 1517 but she is only third on the list of the most beautiful women in art.
• The woman in Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece was found to be only 86.6 per cent accurate to the Golden Ratio – the Greeks’ interpretation of physical perfection.

The guide marks her down for her wide ‘manly’ face, poor shaping of her eyes, slight double chin, and the small gap between her lips and nose. Scroll down for video The woman in Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece was found to be only 86.6 per cent accurate to the Golden Ratio – the Greeks’ interpretation of physical perfection The golden ratio was a mathematical equation devised by the Greeks in an attempt to measure beauty.

• Though it can seem complex these can be fairly simple equations to try on yourself.
• For example, the simplest measurement is the length of your face divided by the width of your face.
• Width of lips divided by length and length of nose divided by width are other calculations you can try.

Twentieth-century artists and architects, including Le Corbusier and Dalí, have used the golden ratio. The golden ratio also appears in some patterns in nature, including the spiral arrangement of leaves and other plant parts. The Mona Lisa is the world’s most valuable work of art worth £600 million ($775m) and on permanent display at The Louvre in Paris.

1. The masterpieces were tested with the latest facial mapping techniques by cosmetic surgeon Dr Julian De Silva, who uses the technology in his work.
2. Dr De Silva, who runs the Centre For Advanced Facial Cosmetic & Plastic Surgery in Harley Street, London, said: ‘This new research confirms what many people have thought for centuries – the Mona Lisa is a beautiful painting but she falls short of what the Greeks viewed as physical perfection.
3. ‘She misses out on perfection for a number of reasons – her wide ‘manly’ face, poor shaping of her eyes, slight double chin, and the small gap between her lips and nose.
4. ‘The Mona Lisa is the most famous painting in the world by a considerable distance and there is no doubt it changed the whole face of modern art.
5. ‘But while we may all love her enigmatic smile and admire the brilliance of da Vinci’s brushstrokes, other works of art come far closer to matching what the Greeks considered physical perfection’.
6. The golden ratio was a mathematical equation devised by the Greeks in an attempt to measure beauty.
7. While the ratio can by applied to anything, and was used by Leonardo Da Vinci for the the perfect human male body in his famous work the Virtruvian Man, it is also applied to the human face.

The premise behind this is that the closer the ratios of a face, body or room are to the number 1.62, the more beautiful it becomes. The golden ratio (pictured) was a mathematical equation devised by the Greeks in an attempt to measure beauty. The premise behind this is that the closer the ratios of a face, body or room are to the number 1.62, the more beautiful it becomes The Birth Of Venus by Sandro Botticelli in the 1480s came second on 89 per cent – scoring highly for her chin, face shape and forehead Pictured is a close-up of The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli with a close-up graphic of Beauty of Phi research.

• Dr De Silva said: ‘Marilyn was the greatest Hollywood female star of her day and that is because she was incredibly beautiful.’
• The Birth Of Venus by Sandro Botticelli in the 1480s came second on 89 per cent – scoring highly for her chin, face shape and forehead.
• However, Dr De Silva said she had the lowest scores for her eyebrows and chin.
• ‘Venus has been beguiling art lovers since she was painted by the Italian master Sandro Botticelli way back in 1480.
• ‘She scores highly for her chin, face shape and forehead and is let down by her eye position and a poor brow area’, he said.

The golden ratio also appears in some patterns in nature, including the spiral arrangement of leaves and other plant parts Pictured is a shell with the golden ratio. The golden ratio was a mathematical equation devised by the Greeks in an attempt to measure beauty The Mona Lisa was beaten to first place in the beauty stakes by other well-known female portraits such as Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe (89.1 per cent) (pictured) In fourth place was the 1665 Girl With A Pearl Earring by Dutch master Johannes Vermeer with 86.3 per cent – scoring well for her eyebrows and the shape of her nose and face In fourth place was the 1665 Girl With A Pearl Earring by Dutch master Johannes Vermeer with 86.3 per cent – scoring well for her eyebrows and the shape of her nose and face.

• ‘She is beautiful girl who scores highly for her eyebrows, nose and face shape but does less well for eye position and her brow area’, said Dr De Silva.
• Fifth place went to the reclining woman in the 1863 work Olympia by Edouard Manet with 85.4 per cent.
• She scored well for her lips and brow area.
• ‘Manet’s famous nude of a woman being bought flowers by her servant is one of the famous works of art on display in Paris.

‘She scores well for her lips and brow area but does less well for her forehead and face shape.’ According to the research the most beautiful female celebrity is Johnny Depp’s former wife Amber Heard who was found to be 91.8 per cent accurate to the Greek Golden Ratio of Beauty.

1. Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, more commonly Leonardo da Vinci or simply Leonardo, was one of the greatest individuals of the last millennium.
2. The polymath was a driving force behind the Renaissance and dabbled in invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography.
3. He has been attributed with the development of the parachute, helicopter and tank.
4. He was born in what is modern-day Italy in 1452 and died at the age of 67 in France.
5. After being born out of wedlock the visionary he worked in Milan, Rome, Bologna and Venice.
6. His most recognisable works include the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper and the Vitruvian Man.

Another piece of artwork, dubbed the Salvator Mundi, sold for a world record $450.3 million (£343 million) at a Christie’s auction in New York in 2017. : Mona Lisa isn’t all that pretty, according to the ancient Greeks