BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--In comparison to a recent subsurface image analysis of the Mona Lisa portrait at the Louvre Museum of Paris, it appears the newly discovered Renaissance metalcut Plate of Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Last Supper” brought forth by art scholar and Harvard Art Fellow, James Constable, is connected to the world-famous portrait of the Mona Lisa by the appearance of the subsurface portrait on both works of art.
Graeme Cameron, noted art historian, researcher, and Principal at VegaScan Systems, Australia, looked deeply into the layers of the Mona Lisa with special technology and found that the sublayer of the painting depicted a 60+ year old female, bearing the features of Da Vinci’s mother, Caterina. The new revelation by Constable is the discovery that the ‘older woman’ on the subsurface of the Mona Lisa portrait and on the “Last Supper Plate” metalcut appear to be the same. A younger Caterina is also believed to be the inspiration of the female sitting to the right of Jesus in the “Last Supper” painting at Milan.
When compared to the metalcut Plate (a rare form of relief printing created by engraving lines that serve as sublayers to guide the painting of a final Renaissance masterpiece), there is a remarkable match between the “Last Supper Plate” Madonna, and the subsurface Madonna, to the Louvre Museum Mona Lisa portrait. Interestingly, both versions of the “old woman” have eyebrows. A well-known research finding of technologist Pascal Cotte, of Paris, is that the Mona Lisa portrait was originally depicted with eyebrows (which fell away during centuries of painting restorations).
Renaissance artists did not have the ability to uncover images of the time from underneath paint pigment - accordingly, similar unique sublayer images usually depicted the picturesque creation process of the same artist. Giorgio Vasari, the famous Renaissance art historian, described the eyebrows of Mona Lisa in his writings – as cited by many researchers. In the “Last Supper Plate”, and also in the subsurface Madonna of the Mona Lisa Louvre portrait, both images of the 60+ year-old women have eyebrows, depicting a matching set of portraiture images – an amazing research finding 520 years later.
The subsurface of the Mona Lisa portrait is confirmed by VegaScan Systems, Australia. The Courtauld Institute uses VegaScan technology for research purposes. Graeme and Norman Cameron generously provided this copyrighted VegaScan as an illustration.
The McCrone Group and Joseph Barabe, scientist and photographer, contributed exceptionally to the research effort. Joseph Barabe is acclaimed for art materials research, micro-study, and research analysis, and with Walter McCrone, for the world famous “Shroud of Turin” controversy (National Geographic Society and Time Magazine); additionally for scientific work at the Art Institute of Chicago.
All interview inquiries and requests can be coordinated through Lauren Mucci, available at lmucci@schneiderpr.com or at 617-646-3317.