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More Mona Lisa mystery unveiled in Geneva

The mystery behind the most enigmatic smile in art; Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” is a little more complicated.

In a unveiling in Geneva Thursday as the non-profit Mona Lisa Foundation presented what it sees is a predecessor of the world’s most famous portrait.

The Art World is always open to rumors, speculation and discoveries that rock the scene.

Now we have new claim about the world’s most famous painting, which draws millions of visitors to Paris’ Louvre Museum every year, resonates in the art world. It also prompts a new look at a painting that all by itself raises a lot of questions for experts, not least of which “Is she smiling or not?”

The “Isleworth Mona Lisa” features a dark-haired young woman with her arms crossed against a distant backdrop. The foundation insists it is not a copy but an earlier version of the da Vinci Masterpiece.

At the presentation, Alessandro Vezzosi, director of the Museo Ideale Leonardo da Vinci, said the painting was intriguing but needs more study.

“The Isleworth Mona Lisa is an important work of art deserving respect and strong consideration, as well as a scientific, historic and artistic debate among specialists.” he said.

“Scientific tests do not demonstrate the authenticity,and the autography of a painting, they demonstrate that it is from a certain era, whether the techniques are similar or not,” Mr. Vezzosi said. “Here, there are many open questions.”

Ever since the 16th Century, several historical sources suggest that da Vinci painted two “Mona Lisa” versions.

One was of Mona Lisa Gherardo around Y 1503 that was commissioned by her husband, Francesco del Giocondo, the foundation said. Another, the one in the Louvre was completed in Y 1517 for Giuliano de Medici, da Vinci’s patron.

That theory fits with da Vinci’s tendency at times to paint 2 versions of some of his works, like the Virgin of the Rocks.

Foundation members say it is unrealistic to think that the woman sat twice for a portrait, but that the meticulous, mathematical approach suggested that da Vinci may have projected in his mind what she would have looked like between the 1st (alleged) “Mona Lisa” and the “Mona Lisa” in the Louvre.

The foundation acknowledged that the “Isleworth Mona Lisa” is unfinished, and that da Vinci did not paint all parts of the work.

Still, the group pointed to newly discovered evidence in Y 2005 from Heidelberg, Germany, that suggested da Vinci was working on at least the head of such a painting in Y 1503.

The painting has been in headlines before, starting in the early 20th Century. And it is not unknown to foreign audiences. It was shown in Japan last year before the Foundation’s research was finished.

Experts say Thursday’s unveiling was designed to draw more attention and scrutiny from worldwide art experts about whether it’s authentic: A start more than a finish.

The Isleworth painting first came to public light after British art collector Hugh Blaker found it in the home of a nobleman in Somerset, England before World War I, said Robert Meyrick, head of the art school at Wales’ Aberystwyth University.

Mr. Blaker bought the painting and took it to his private studio in Isleworth outside London. US and British newspapers speculated then that it might be a da Vinci. But at that time only art experts, not high-tech science tests like the ones conducted by the foundation could judge its possible bona fides.

During World War I, Mr. Blaker shipped the painting to Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts for safekeeping, the foundation said.

In Y 1962, it was bought by US collector Henry Pulitzer. When he died in Y 1979, his mistress, Elisabeth Meyer inherited it, but it remained in a Swiss bank vault.

After Ms. Meyer died, an “international consortium” which the Foundation declined to identify, bought the painting in Y 2008, according to the group’s chronology. The Foundation was set up 2 yrs later, determined to try to show that it was a real da Vinci.

The Mona Lisa Foundation’s members are more from the business world than the Art World.

Participating in Thursday’s show was David Feldman, an Irish-born stamp auctioneer; his brother Stanley, an art historian who was the main author of an extensive book on the “Isleworth Mona Lisa”; and Markus Frey, a lawyer in Zurich who is the Foundation’s President.

“It is the ultimate goal of our endeavors to give that stunning earlier version the place in art history which it deserves, after such a long period in obscurity,” Mr. Frey said. “This great piece of art must finally be given to the public to eye.”

He said viewers can draw their own conclusions.

“Quite a few things we were taught in our early school years turned out to be incorrect, or were overturned by new discoveries or updated information,” he said.

“The quintessence of any humanistic education is to ask questions, to be inquisitive, and to challenge authority. Of course, authority often sits in an Ivory Tower, which will no doubt be our biggest challenge.”

The Foundation and its backers paid “several million” to conduct research tests; forensic analysis, carbon-dating and computerized regression analysis on the work, David Feldman said. He would not say how much the painting was bought for in Y 2008.

Carlo Pedrotti, one of the world’s most eminent scholars on da Vinci, hailed the Foundation’s “extraordinary contribution to scholarship.”

In a letter to the foundation presented Thursday, Mr. Pedrotti called the group “precisely the sort of research institute, if not a veritable investigating agency, an FBI for Leonardo studies that I had always hoped for.”