The Mona Lisa may well be the world’s most famous painting, Leonardo’s masterpiece that hangs in Paris’ Louvre Museum visited by over six million people a year.

Now a French scientist by the name of Pascal Cotte is claiming that, with the help of reflective light technology, another portrait can be seen underneath the existing painting.

He says that after more than 10 years of research he can see another portrait of someone sitting, although this time they are looking off to the side. Below from the BBC:

Instead of the famous, direct gaze of the painting which hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris, the image of the sitter also shows no trace of her enigmatic smile, which has intrigued art lovers for more than 500 years.

But Mr Cotte’s claims are controversial and have divided opinion among Leonardo experts. The scientist, who is the co-founder of Lumiere Technology in Paris, was given access to the painting in 2004 by the Louvre.

He has pioneered a technique called Layer Amplification Method (LAM), which he used to analyse the Mona Lisa. It works by “projecting a series of intense lights” on to the painting, Mr Cotte said. A camera then takes measurements of the lights’ reflections and from those measurements, Mr Cotte said he is able to reconstruct what has happened between the layers of the paint.

He has a fan in art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon, who claims his study of historical documents linked to the painting backs up Cotte’s claim:

Mr Graham-Dixon said: “I have no doubt that this is definitely one of the stories of the century.

“There will probably be some reluctance on the part of the authorities at the Louvre in changing the title of the painting because that’s what we’re talking about – it’s goodbye Mona Lisa, she is somebody else.”

Unfortunately they have declined to release any images of the hidden portrait until after the airing of a documentary titled ‘The Secrets of the Mona Lisa’. Now we wait…

[source:bbc]