It seems that the Mona Lisa in her 500 years of existence has suffered the fate of many women - overzealous eyebrow plucking! Scientists have pondered her lack of eyebrows (and eyelashes for that matter) for years. Where did they go? Were they there in the first place? Well, a scientist may have solved this timeless conundrum.
Pascal Cotte, a French engineer and inventor, has recently scanned the Mona Lisa using his own high-definition camera producing a 240-million pixel image using 13 light spectrums, including ultra-violet and infrared. The resulting image magnifies her face up to 24 times. The image captured a single brushstroke of hair above her left brow. Success! He believes that Da Vinci did indeed paint on her eyebrows and eyelashes.
But what about their disappearing act? Well, they could've been removed by a shoddy cleaning job. Mona Lisa's eye was cleaned at one point and the eyebrows and lashes could have been taken off along with dirt and grime. Who knows. We may never know the mystery of the disappearing eyebrows and lashes....
3 comments:
That is ridiculous.
That comment was actually meant for the kids buying art. My fault.
hah! yes its hard to re-sell a warhol with crayon and fingerpaint marks on it
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