Even the biggest philistine has heard of the Mona Lisa.

It’s arguably the world’s most famous painting and Leonardo Da Vinci’s most famous work.

The Mona Lisa lives at the Louvre in Paris, where it’s visited by thousands of people every year.

Now some are claiming that it has a sister – a second, earlier Mona Lisa – that lived above the fireplace in a London flat in the 1960s.

BBC reports that the painting is at the centre of a mystery that involves a mysterious international consortium, and Christopher Marinello – the so-called Sherlock Holmes of the art world.

In 2012, an organisation called the Mona Lisa Foundation unveiled to the world, in a blaze of publicity, what it claimed to be a second painting of the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci.

…The foundation set out an array of evidence to try to back up the claim that the painting was a second, previously unknown version of the portrait. But curiously the organisation claims it doesn’t own the painting.

It says the picture is owned by an unnamed international consortium. When asked about this, the foundation’s general secretary, Joël Feldman, replies: “The foundation, as a matter of policy and in compliance with its obligations, does not comment on the ownership consortium.”

That’s all very mysterious, and further complicated by Andrew and Karen Gilbert, who say that they own 25% of the painting.

When they contacted the Mona Lisa Foundation after it unveiled the portrait in 2012 they claimed the organisation said it “didn’t know anything about us, they weren’t the owners and just tried to bat us away as someone inconvenient”.

“Because we were unable to find out who the owner was, nobody was telling us anything, we didn’t know how we could launch any kind of proceedings,” Karen says.

But the family have pressed on and called in the “Sherlock Holmes” of the art world to help.

“Well, I guess I don’t mind it,” Christopher Marinello, CEO and founder of Art Recovery International, says about his nickname.

Karen and Andrew are currently fighting for part-ownership in court.

This week has seen a dramatic development that the Gilberts believe may lead to a breakthrough in their claim.

But a claim in what? Is it possible for a near priceless Leonard da Vinci portrait to suddenly come to light?

This is all sounding a lot like what happened when another of Da Vinci’s paintings, Salvator Mundi, sold for $450 million at an auction at Christie’s in New York in 2017.

The difference, of course, is that Salvator Mundi was authenticated by a panel of experts. Now they’re trying to do the same for the other Mona Lisa.

“Giorgio Vasari, the [16th Century] biographer of Leonardo, clearly states that Leonardo worked on the Mona Lisa for four years and then left it unfinished.”

This matches the appearance of the Earlier Mona Lisa, which has an incomplete background, unlike the famous portrait that hangs in the Louvre.

Professor Isbouts also points out that historical records mention Leonardo painting the Mona Lisa for two different clients, raising the possibility that he completed two separate portraits, one for each commission.

He adds that scientific tests seem to back up the claim that the painting is genuine.

“With the Earlier Mona Lisa the science told us a) it is from the early 16th Century, b) it is definitely a composition by Leonardo because the configuration and the composition is identical to that of the Louvre Mona Lisa and c) the histograms [digital graphs of the colours used] show that in terms of the ‘handwriting’ of the painting, how he applies the paint, [it] is exactly identical.”

Not everyone agrees. Martin Kemp, emeritus professor of art history at the University of Oxford, says that it’s all “a bit of rubbish”.

However, he adds “examination by infrared and other technical means, shows that it [the Louvre Mona Lisa] underwent an evolution, as all Leonardo’s pictures did.

“The infrared examination of the Isleworth Madonna [as Earlier Mona Lisa is also known] is just tediously exact and is clearly the kind of drawing that’s made when you’re copying something rather than generating it.”

Professor Isbouts, however, is critical of Professor Kemp’s analysis in part because “Martin has never seen the work, and that’s the beef that David and Joel [Feldman of the Mona Lisa Foundation] have, and I think it’s a legitimate beef.”

A beef, indeed. You can read more about the famous painting and its counterpart, here.

At least we know for sure that the painting in the Louvre is the genuine article, even if it does have a twin.

[source:bbc]