The Exhibition Around Prado's Mona Lisa Sheds New Light on the Original

The name of Leonardo da Vinci always raises enormous interest in the art world. The famed Renaissance polymath, celebrated for his paintings but also engineering ideas, scientific explorations, and writings, has been a subject of another research recently, conducted by the Museo Nacional del Prado. This time, the focus is on the artist’s immediate circle and works created in his studio, including the copy of the Mona Lisa.

The Mona Lisa painting, or Gioconda as it is also called, is presumed to represent the portrait of the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, Lisa Gherardini. The painting famous for the sitter’s smile was made on a poplar panel from Lombardy in the years 1503 – 1517. In 1516, Leonardo moved to France to the court of Francis I and took the unfinished painting with him. After Leonardo’s death, the Mona Lisa remained in France and has been permanently displayed in the Louvre since 1797.

The exhibition based on the research opened this September at the Spanish museum under the title Leonardo and the copy of the Mona Lisa. New approaches to the artist’s studio practices. It is the first monographic exhibition of Leonardo in the Prado and in Spain that focuses on the copies and versions of his works, made during the artist’s lifetime in his atelier and under his supervision.

Prado’s Mona Lisa

The Prado museum’s centerpiece is the copy of the original Mona Lisa from the Louvre, and is one of the earliest known and the most revealing when it comes to artistic techniques. The restoration and technical study of the painting described in news also helped in attributions of other works, namely of the copy of Saint Anne in the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, and the Ganay version of the Salvator Mundi.

Technical and analytical equipment used in this original research at the museum confirms that the Prado’s Mona Lisa has been painted during Leonardo’s time, in the presence and under the supervision of the master. The comparative analysis of the Mona Lisa in Prado and the painted original in Louvre shows that the two paintings were created in parallel, with the anonymous artist working besides the master, copying the creative process, details, and corrections.

The infrared reflectogram revealed that the details beneath the surface are identical in both pieces; some of the invisible modifications of the Paris Mona Lisa are repeated in the Madrid work as well. While the details of the Paris canvas are obscured due to discolored varnish, the Prado Mona Lisa reveals more detail and intentions of the artist. However, until recently, the background with its landscape was overpainted with black color, hiding these details. The black layer was removed in 2012, showing that the Paris and Madrid Mona Lisas have similar backgrounds and confirming that they were painted simultaneously.

Parts of the chair, the veil on the left hand, and pieces of fabric on the Mona Lisa’s chest are better preserved on the Prado painting than on the original. The colors are also brighter; Giorgio Vasari noted the rosy tone of the woman’s lips, and this detail is still visible in Prado’s work. Due to these findings, the time of its production have changed as well, and the painting is now dated to 1507-16.

While the unnamed artist tried to follow and repeat the master’s work closely, interestingly enough, the artist also preserved individuality by not trying to impersonate the original in every detail. Drawings and lines unrelated to the Paris Mona Lisa appear in the piece, confirming that Prado’s painting is more than a mere copy.

Following the research, the Prado Mona Lisa has become a common reference in other projects centering on Leonardo, his pupils, and collaborators. Recent exhibitions and events increased interest in the master’s life and work, leading to a closer analysis of his treatises, visual technique, and drawings that helped shape Leonardo’s image as a teacher and pictorial thinker.

Leonardo’s Studio and Practice

While the Mona Lisa undoubtedly attracts the most attention, other segments of the show reveal interesting details about Leonardo’s workshop and the historical context of art production in the late 15th and early 16th centuries in Italy.

The displayed works are presented with research findings, including infrared reflectograms and graphic materials. The broad selection of museum’s exhibits helps create a more comprehensive understanding of the master’s ideas and the aspects of technical and practical skills employed by his pupils. Together, they give us an overview of the teaching methods and artistic mastery of Leonardo’s studio.

As the Prado Mona Lisa shows, while Leonardo supervised his pupils, he allowed them a certain level of freedom. Shared pictorial and graphic practices testify to Leonardo’s ideas about the reproduction of nature that should not be mediated by hand and focus of light and color effects, leading to the blending of pigment and erasure of brushstrokes. However, how this is achieved was left to artists, who, while adhering to Leonardo’s teachings, put them into practice in various ways. Some blended the pigment with their fingers, while others copied the master’s approach with networks of red and white strokes painted over gray fields.

The well-known Leonardo’s sfumato and chiaroscuro technique are visible in other works, such as the cartoon for Saint Anne, The Christ Child with a Lamb, and The Young Saviour. However, the closest liking to the master’s “evaporating” figures that blend seamlessly into the background with earth tone used to get this effect has been achieved by an indirect follower, Andrea del Sarto.

The most admired works by Leonardo, the Mona Lisa, Salvator Mundi, and Saint Anne, have their copies made in Leonardo’s workshop with expensive materials. Two paintings show intermediate states in the production of originals’ figures and landscape and are invaluable records of Leonardo’s reflections and considerations while also revealing the personalities of the artists who made them.

The Copy of Mona Lisa at the Prado

The exhibition Leonardo and the copy of the Mona Lisa. New approaches to the artist’s studio practices will be on view at the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid until January 23rd, 2022.

Located in Room D of Jerónimos Building, the show benefits from the collaboration of the City Council of Madrid. It is curated by Ana González Mozo, Senior Technician of Museums in the Museum’s Conservation Department. The Prado’s Mona Lisa project is realized in collaboration with other international institutions, including Musée du Louvre, the Molecular Archaeology Laboratory at the Sorbonne, and the National Gallery, London.