Did Leonardo da Vinci draw this ‘Nude Mona Lisa’? Experts believe he did
- Microscopic examinations have shown that it was drawn by a ‘left-handed artist’ in Leonardo da Vinci’s studio
A nude drawing that bears a striking resemblance to the Mona Lisa was done in Leonardo da Vinci’s studio and may be the work of the master himself, a French museum said.
Experts at the Louvre in Paris, where the world’s biggest collection of Leonardo’s work is held, have been examining a charcoal drawing known as the Monna Vanna which has long been attributed to the Renaissance painter’s studio.
But the charcoal preparatory work for a painting of a semi-nude woman, held at the Conde Museum at Chantilly north of Paris, may now have to be reclassified.
“There is a very strong possibility that Leonardo did most of the drawing,” Mathieu Deldicque, a curator at the Paris museum, said.
“It is a work of very great quality done by a great artist,” added Deldicque, who initiated an investigation over several months by historians and scientific specialists at the renowned C2RMF laboratory under the Louvre.
