A private group of investors based in Switzerland presented in Geneva on September 27, 2012 a little known version of a younger Mona Lisa, claiming it had been painted ten years before the famous painting hanging now in the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Painted on canvas, a material never known to have been used by Leonardo Da Vinci, this larger version of a more smiling sitter represented against a rather simple background was bought in 1914 by Hugh Blaker, an artist and art critic living in Isleworth, West of London, who claimed that it came from a Somerset manor.
This work was eventually acquired in 1962 by Henry Pulitzer, a British collector, who then claimed it was the very first version of Mona Lisa painted by Leonardo some ten years before he executed the painting belonging to the Louvre Museum. Researchers working for the group, which bought this work from the heirs of Pulitzer's wife in 2003, suggested that it might have been given by the artist to his patron Francesco del Giocondo par Léonard while he would have preferred to embellish the portrait of his sitter which became the property of King François 1st after his death.
Such theory was made by Alessandro Vezzosi, head of the communal Museum of da Vinci, the native town of Leonardo du maître who recalled that two portraits of Mona Lisa were mentioned in a book published in 1584 by Giovanni Lomazzo, an art historian. Furthermore, extensive scientific tests were made on that painting which tended to prove its authenticity. Still, the fact that it was painted on canvas baffled several respected art historians since Da Vinci was only known to have worked on wood panels. In addition, the Isleworth work did not show any visible corrections underneath its surface contrary to those found on the portrait belonging to the Louvre Museum not to mention that the background is far from being in the style of Da Vinci who was quite meticulous regarding the way he tackled his works.
In fact, the sole portrait of Mona Lisa likely to be considered as having been painted at the same time as Da Vinci's is the one owned by the Prado Museum in Madrid which was exhibited alongside it during an exhibition of the restored Saint Ann by that artist held at the Louvre a few months ago. This portrait has now been considered as a copy made in Da Vinci's studio when he was working on his legendary painting and has the particularity of being more vivid in colours than the original notwithstanding that the same corrections made by the artist appear under its layer whereas the Isleworth work does not contain any of these nor the sfumato so dear to Da Vinci, which means that it lacks something essential.
Vinci was truly obsessed by perfection, especially regarding his Mona Lisa, which he ceaselessly retouched with a view to making it astonishingly vivid so as to transform it into a legendary icon. No wonder then that this painting has been so often the object of unendless researches by scores of specialists who tried to unravel its mystery to finally forge its incredible legend.
Still, basing its assertion on 35 years of extensive researches, the Switzerland-based group claimed its Mona Lisa was an earlier version of the famous portrait painted by Da Vinci. However, while the sitter appears younger, this painting is larger and more colorful; It remains that it was executed on canvas, a fact which, as much as the rather strange background, is likely to bar its authenticity even though Giorgio Vasari, an art historian of the 16 th Century reported in his book relating the lives of famous painters that Leonardo had painted two versions of Mona Lisa.
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