Is the Mona Lisa based on Da Vinci?

Answer

The ‘Mona Leo’ theory dates back to 1984, when computer scientist and film artist Lilian Schwartz merged the halves of the Mona Lisa and the Portrait of an Old Man in Red Chalk into a single image, matching some lines (chin, nose, eye level). would come. Her hypothesis was that it was originally a sketch by Isabella of Naples, which Leonardo finished with a mirror due to lack of model. Criticism of that hypothesis and research method was given very early on:

• Schwartz heavily edited the images, especially that of the Old Man being mirrored and details erased;
• the old man’s portrait may be a self-portrait, but that is by no means certain; other portraits or presumed portraits of Leonardo da Vinci differ from it;
• that proportions and lines in both works of art agree with each other only indicates that they were made by the same artist, not that they are based on the same model;
• male or female facial proportions cannot be easily determined;
• contemporaries and courtiers who saw both Isabella and the portrait, such as Luigi d’Aragona and Antonio de Beatis, noticed no resemblance at all;
• in ‘morphing’, Schwartz himself repeatedly points out differences in facial structure between the Mona Lisa, the portrait of Isabella of Aragon and the portrait of the old man.

And it does require some imagination on the part of the viewer to recognize the similarities in the reminiscent of all those portraits. Perhaps more importantly, there are historical sources that indicate that the work did indeed depict Lisa Gherardini, and that she may have posed for him. But because hard facts are often lacking and the work has captured the imagination since the theft, wild hypotheses often grow about da Vinci’s work, about hidden figures, visible symptoms of illness or similarities with other works.