The secrets of the Mona Lisa have been revealed after French technology unveiled eyebrows and eyelashes on the painting.
Pascal Cotte, a French scientist and inventor of the ‘multispectral’ camera, announced the true hairiness of Leonardo da Vinci’s original masterpiece.
But as well as having eyebrows and eyelashes, Mona Lisa is now also thought to have originally had a wider smile and a blanket over her knees, features that remained hidden due to restoration efforts in the past.
In one image Cotte has created what he calls the ‘most accurate high-definition reproduction’ of the 500-year old painting, including the slides and the back of the poplar board it was painted on.
Cotte said: “The camera’s infrared rays penetrated the picture layer, seeing the entire spectrum of colour through three layers of paint.”
He went on to claim that the painting’s original colours were light blues and whites instead of the current heavy greens, yellows and browns.
After a three-hour photo shoot in 2004, Cotte captured the new digital images with his 240-megapixel camera.
He said he felt that the painting’s nuances would now give others a better chance to appreciate art.
Cotte said: “It’s a magnet for people to approach the painting, they don’t understand why the Mona Lisa is the best painting in the world.”
Although art historians may have known about these fresh details, the technology was praised for its ‘amazing precision in just one shot’.
Ever appreciative of da Vinci’s work, Cotte said: “Nothing is made by hazard, da Vinci always thinks very hard beforehand.”
Earlier Mr Cotte has studied the works of Van Gogh, Brueghel, Courbet and other European masters.
His company, Lumiere Technology, is currently working on another oil painting.
Images of Pascal Cotte at work are still on display until December 31 at the Metreon in San Francisco.
