Mona Lisa’s secret smile: Hidden portrait ‘found’ under Da Vinci’s masterpiece

A hidden portrait has been found underneath the Mona Lisa, a scientist has claimed. Pascal Cotte, co-founder of Lumiere Technology in Paris, has spent a decade analysing the Mona Lisa and claims an earlier portrait lies hidden underneath the one which attracts so many visitors to the Louvre. Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting has been subjected to ten years of study using reflective light technology. In a reconstruction of his analysis, there is another image of a sitter looking off to the side, the BBC reported.

When I finished the reconstruction of Lisa Gherardini, I was in front of the portrait and she is totally different to Mona Lisa today. This is not the same woman.

Pascal Cotte

Mr Cotte used a technique called Layer Amplification Method (LAM) to delve deeper into the Mona Lisa. This projects a series of lights on the painting and the reflections are then measured by a camera. From those measurements, the hidden layers of the painting can be reconstructed. In this image, the sitter does not smile like in the famous painting. Cotte believes the image to be that of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine merchant. The Louvre Museum has declined to comment on his claims. The Secrets of the Mona Lisa programme will be broadcast on BBC Two at 9pm on December 9.

Arts Mona Lisa