Mona Lisa reveals another secret: By using X-rays to peer into the chemical structure of a small piece of the celebrated artwork, scientists have gained new insight into the techniques Leonardo da Vinci used to paint that groundbreaking portrait of a woman with a mysterious a smile.
The oil paint recipe that Leonardo used as a base coat to prepare the poplar wood panel appears to have been different and with a special chemical composition characteristic of the Mona Lisa, a team of scientists and art historians from France and the UK has found.
“He liked to experiment and each of his pictures is technically completely different” – says Victor Gonzalez, lead author of the study and a chemist at France’s top research body, the CNRS. Gonzalez studied the chemical composition of dozens of works by Leonardo, Rembrandt and other artists.
“In this case, it’s interesting to see that there really is a specific technique for the base layer of the Mona Lisa,” he told the media.
Researchers have found the rare compound “plumbonacrite” in Leonardo’s first layer of paint. The discovery, Gonzalez said, confirmed for the first time what art historians had previously only assumed: that Leonardo likely used powdered lead oxide to thicken the base paint mixture and help it dry as he began work on the portrait of the woman who now looks behind the protective glass in the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Carmen Baumbach, an Italian art specialist and curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York who was not involved in the study, called the research “very exciting” and said any scientifically proven new insight into Leonardo’s painting techniques is “extremely important news.” about the art world and our global society.”
Finding plombonacrit in the Mona Lisa testifies to “Leonardo’s spirit of passionate and constant experimentation as a painter – that’s what makes him timeless and modern,” Baumbach said.
The fragment of paint from the Mona Lisa’s base layer that was analyzed was barely visible to the naked eye, no larger than the diameter of a human hair, and was taken from the upper right edge of the painting.
After Leonardo, the Dutch master Rembrandt may have used a similar recipe when painting in the 17th century. Gonzalez and other researchers had previously found “plumbonacrite” in his works. “It also tells us that these recipes have been passed down for centuries,” Gonzalez said.
Source: ArtNet