Leonardo: Mona Lisa

4 The bosom (craquelure)

T

he detail of the bosom enables us to study Leonardo’s painting technique.

The master primed the thin poplar panel, which had a perfectly smooth planed surface, with a layer of gesso (a mixture of glue and chalk). The cracks that formed in this produced the craquelure we see in the detail.

Leonardo applied two under-colours on the gesso: blue beneath the upper part with the landscape; dull red beneath the figure.

Lastly he modelled the figure with oil bound colours applied in thin layered glazes: a slow process, made even slower by lengthy pauses.

4 The bosom (craquelure)

T

he detail of the bosom enables us to study Leonardo’s painting technique.

The master primed the thin poplar panel, which had a perfectly smooth planed surface, with a layer of gesso (a mixture of glue and chalk). The cracks that formed in this produced the craquelure we see in the detail.

Leonardo applied two under-colours on the gesso: blue beneath the upper part with the landscape; dull red beneath the figure.

Lastly he modelled the figure with oil bound colours applied in thin layered glazes: a slow process, made even slower by lengthy pauses.

5 Hands that speak Titolo

N

ot a single preparatory drawing by Leonardo is known to exist for the Mona Lisa. However, we do know of numerous generic studies of hands by the master (and hands are quite significant in this painting too). According to some scholars, the hands resting on the parapet and crossed over the woman’s stomach are intended to draw attention to the fact that she is pregnant.

We do not know whether she was or not.

What we can be certain of is that Leonardo attributed great importance to anatomical details.

In order to render them realistically, the anatomy of the nerves, bones, skin and muscles had to be studied first. Moreover, when well executed, hands can be fundamental in indicating those “mental intentions� which, in a portrait of a young lady, must coincide with the virtues of modesty and decency: values that the hands softly crossed over the stomach seem precisely to evoke.

5 Hands that speak Titolo

N

ot a single preparatory drawing by Leonardo is known to exist for the Mona Lisa. However, we do know of numerous generic studies of hands by the master (and hands are quite significant in this painting too). According to some scholars, the hands resting on the parapet and crossed over the woman’s stomach are intended to draw attention to the fact that she is pregnant.

We do not know whether she was or not.

What we can be certain of is that Leonardo attributed great importance to anatomical details.

In order to render them realistically, the anatomy of the nerves, bones, skin and muscles had to be studied first. Moreover, when well executed, hands can be fundamental in indicating those “mental intentions� which, in a portrait of a young lady, must coincide with the virtues of modesty and decency: values that the hands softly crossed over the stomach seem precisely to evoke.

‘‘

Leonardo also made use of this device: while he was painting Mona Lisa, who was a very beautiful woman, he employed singers and musicians or jesters to keep her full of merriment and so chase away the melancholy that painting often gives to portraits. As a result, in this painting of Leonardo’s there was a smile so pleasing that it seemed divine rather than human; and those who saw it were amazed to find that it was as alive as the original.

‘‘

(Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists,1550)

to a certain Ambrogio da Vimercate. The list includes a “Ioconde figuram”. The problem is the value of the work, which this time is very low. Did Lorenziola sell the Mona Lisa or a copy? Who knows. And as if this were not enough to create even more confusion, in 1999, a third document came to light in the Paris National Archives: an exceptionally high payment of 2604 tornesels made by the treasurer of the King of France to Salaì, shortly before his departure for Lombardy in 1518. What did Salaì sell the King of France for this exorbitant sum? “Quelques Tables de peinture”, reads the receipt laconically. What are we to think? That Salaì sold the King of France the Mona Lisa, while Leonardo was still alive? Or are we to imagine that once he had received the Mona Lisa from the master, Salaì took it to Lombardy, and after 1525 Francis I of France succeeded in recovering it and bringing it back to his country?

We are navigating on a sea of conjectures. The really important fact, learned from the new documents that have come to light, confirms the substantial truth

16

out and replaced with “dicto la Joconda” (a Portrait of La Gioconda).

This is the first time that this curious name appears in the documents. Moreover, the estimated value written next to the portrait is very high, 100 scudi and 555 soldi, far higher than that of the diamonds and emeralds in the list. Is this the painting now in the Louvre? Probably.

In 1517 Leonardo was at the Castle of Cloux near Amboise and received a visit from Cardinal Louis of Aragon. The secretary of the prelate, Antonio de Beatis, notes in his journal that the painter showed the guests some paintings including one “of a certain Florentine lady […] done from life, at the instance of the magnificent Giuliano de’ Medici.” More than one scholar has identified this painting as the Mona Lisa, which Leonardo could have given to Salaì in 1518, and the latter could have brought to Italy and then left to his sisters. A 1531 document (discovered in the Milan State Archives in 1998) testifies, in fact, to Lorenziola, Salaì’s sister, transferring some paintings

9

LEONARDO DA VINCI Mona Lisa, detail Circa 1503-1513 Oil on poplar panel, 77 3 53 cm Paris, Musée du Louvre

‘‘

Leonardo also made use of this device: while he was painting Mona Lisa, who was a very beautiful woman, he employed singers and musicians or jesters to keep her full of merriment and so chase away the melancholy that painting often gives to portraits. As a result, in this painting of Leonardo’s there was a smile so pleasing that it seemed divine rather than human; and those who saw it were amazed to find that it was as alive as the original.

‘‘

(Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists,1550)

to a certain Ambrogio da Vimercate. The list includes a “Ioconde figuram”. The problem is the value of the work, which this time is very low. Did Lorenziola sell the Mona Lisa or a copy? Who knows. And as if this were not enough to create even more confusion, in 1999, a third document came to light in the Paris National Archives: an exceptionally high payment of 2604 tornesels made by the treasurer of the King of France to Salaì, shortly before his departure for Lombardy in 1518. What did Salaì sell the King of France for this exorbitant sum? “Quelques Tables de peinture”, reads the receipt laconically. What are we to think? That Salaì sold the King of France the Mona Lisa, while Leonardo was still alive? Or are we to imagine that once he had received the Mona Lisa from the master, Salaì took it to Lombardy, and after 1525 Francis I of France succeeded in recovering it and bringing it back to his country?

We are navigating on a sea of conjectures. The really important fact, learned from the new documents that have come to light, confirms the substantial truth

16

out and replaced with “dicto la Joconda” (a Portrait of La Gioconda).

This is the first time that this curious name appears in the documents. Moreover, the estimated value written next to the portrait is very high, 100 scudi and 555 soldi, far higher than that of the diamonds and emeralds in the list. Is this the painting now in the Louvre? Probably.

In 1517 Leonardo was at the Castle of Cloux near Amboise and received a visit from Cardinal Louis of Aragon. The secretary of the prelate, Antonio de Beatis, notes in his journal that the painter showed the guests some paintings including one “of a certain Florentine lady […] done from life, at the instance of the magnificent Giuliano de’ Medici.” More than one scholar has identified this painting as the Mona Lisa, which Leonardo could have given to Salaì in 1518, and the latter could have brought to Italy and then left to his sisters. A 1531 document (discovered in the Milan State Archives in 1998) testifies, in fact, to Lorenziola, Salaì’s sister, transferring some paintings

9

LEONARDO DA VINCI Mona Lisa, detail Circa 1503-1513 Oil on poplar panel, 77 3 53 cm Paris, Musée du Louvre