Where did Mona Lisa’s eyebrows go?

Leonardo da Vinci allegedly painted the Mona Lisa eyebrows with special coating that made them look three-dimensional.

Pascal Cotta, art historian, inventor of the super-sensitive 240 pixel camera, discovered that the original version of Mona Lisa had eyebrows.

Leonardo supposedly painted them with a special coating that initially gave them a three-dimensional impression; however, coating dissolved over the years and Mona Lisa’s eyebrows dissapeared.

Theories around this famous painting are controversial; a prominent conservators, art historians and art appraisers often disagree on the origin and identity of the women in the painting, but this does not stop armies of tourists that rush to Paris to see her at least once in a lifetime.

Theories about the Mona Lisa

The fact is that upon returning to Florence, between 1500 and 1506, Leonardo da Vinci painted a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of Florentine merchant Francesco del Gioconda. Next, biographies establishes that even after four years, Leonardo did not finish the portrait. He actually never delivered completed painting to his employer Francesco del Giocondo, but kept it for himself.

Since Vasari is the only one who uses the name Mona Lisa, many historians doubt the accuracy of the name and look for other sources. It is assumed that she may be a mistress of Giuliano de Medici, a certain Pacificia Brandano or one of Charles d’Amboise’s concubines, or even Isabella d 'Este, Marquis of Mantua. Some researchers go as far as to claim that the living model never existed, but that Leonardo painted an ideal woman or his self-portrait in the body of a woman.

Shortly before his death, Leonardo sold the painting to King Francis I, who kept it in the Amboise castle. In the following centuries the painting moves to Fontainbleau, Paris, Versailles, before it finally joins the collection of Louis XIV. After the French Revolution the painting gets a new home in the Louvre. Napoleon took it from there and hung it in his bedroom. After Napoleon was banished, Mona Lisa moves back to the Louvre Museum.

On August 21, 1911 the painting was stolen from the Louvre, by the Italian thief named Vincenzo Perugia. He wanted to bring Mona Lisa back ‘home’, to Italy. Two years later, the image appears in Florence.

Assassination of Mona Lisa

In the attack from 1956 the lower half of the painting was severely damaged by acid, and on December 30^th of the same year, a visitor threw a stone at the painting. The attacker was then deported from his homeland Bolivia after the incident.  

During the 60’s and 70’s, Mona Lisa was exhibited in New York, Tokyo and Moscow. She is currently behind the bulletproof glass of the Louvre Museum in Paris.