Scientists uncover new secrets about Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Mona Lisa’
Scientists have discovered a new secret about how Leonardo da Vinci painted his enigmatic masterpiece, “The Mona Lisa.”
The innovative Renaissance painter invented a unique chemical formula for the oil paints he used when painting the famous gazing🍃 lady, according to groundbreaking research .
Leonardo used his own chemically distinctive recipe on the Mona Lisa’s base layer to prepare the panel of 𝄹poplar wood, the team of scientists and art historians in France and Britain discovered.
“He was someone who lov༺ed to experiment, and each of his paintings is completely different techജnically,” Victor Gonzalez, the study’s lead author and a chemist at France’s top research body, the CNRS, told The Associated Press.
Gonzalez has s♛tudied the chemical compositions of dozens of works by Leonardo, Rembrandt and other artists.
“In this case, it’s interesting𝓰 to see that indeed there is a specific technique for the ground layer of ‘Mona Lisa,’” he said.
The researchers found a rare compound, plumbonacrite, in a fragment🍸 of the iconic work’s first layer, confirming art historians’ suspicions that Leonardo used lead oxide powder to thicken and help dry his paint.
The wisp of paint from the base layer of the “Mona Lisa,” that researchers analyzed was barely visible to the naked eye — just a༒s wide as a human hair — and came from the top right-hand edge of the painting, according to the study.
Using a synchrotron, a large machine that accelerates particles to almost the spꦉeed of light, researchers analyzed the🍰 fragment’s chemical composition at an atomic level.
The 🧸makeup revealed plumbonacrite, a byproduct of lead oxide, allowing the researc🐻hers to say with more certainty that Leonardo likely used the powder in his homemade paint brew.
“Plumbonacrite🎃 is really a fingerprint of his recipe,” Gonzalez said. “It’s the first time we can actually chem👍ically confirm it.”
Gonzalez said that the chemical has also been found in Rembrandt’s works he completed in the Netherlands in the 17th century.
Th🦹is discovery “tells us also that those recipes were passed on for centuries,” he said. “It was a very good recipe.”
Leonardo is thought to have dissolved lead oxide powder, which has an orange color, in linseed or 🔯walnut oil by heating the mixture to makeꦆ a thicker, faster-drying paste.
“What you will obtain is an oil that has a very nice golden color,” Gonzalez said. “It flows more like honey𝔉.”
The “Mona Lisa” has for centuries mystified those who’ve met the cool𒀰 stare of its subject, believed to be Lisa 🌠Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine silk merchant, according to the Louvre Museum in Paris where it has resided since the 18th century.
Even with this breakthrough, Gonzalez says there are more hidden secrets in Leonardo’s works t𝔉o be found.
“We are barely scratching the surfa🤡ce,ౠ” Gonzalez said. “What we are saying is just a little brick more in the knowledge.”
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