Does mona Lisa have eye brows?

Answer 1

Second only to the mystery of her enigmatic smile is another question that has long fascinated art experts: what happened to Mona Lisa's eyebrows?

A Parisian engineer who has dedicated 3,000 hours to examining Leonardo da vinci's famous portrait now claims to have the answer.

Pascal Cotte says that ultra detailed digital scans of the 16th-century picture allow him to look into the past and see how the Florentine merchant's wife looked before years of restoration work.

Using the 240-megapixel scans, Mr Cotte, 49, says he can see traces of a left eyebrow long obscured from the naked eye by the efforts of the restorers.

His conclusion is that Mona Lisa once had both eyebrows and eyelashes, but that these have been gradually eroded to the point that they are no longer visible.

"If you look closely at Mona Lisa's eye you can clearly see that the cracks around the eye have slightly disappeared, and that may be explained that one day a curator or restorer cleaned the eye, and cleaning the eye removed, probably removed the eyelashes and eyebrow," he said.

Mr Cotte said his study of the painting also revealed that Da Vinci originally painted Mona Lisa with a wider face and a more expressive smile than in the final work.

He also changed his mind about the position of two fingers on the subject's left hand.

The alterations that Da Vinci made to the painting are, according to Mr Cotte, an example of his perfectionism.

"With just one photo you go deeper into the construction of the painting and understand that Leonardo was a genius," Mr Cotte said.

Da Vinci is quoted as once saying: "Art is never finished, only abandoned."

He is thought to have kept The Mona Lisa with him for more than a decade and kept working on it right up until his death.

Answer 2

Many reasons could be the case...

• They were accidently removed because of shoddy cleaning.

• It was the fashion of the time

• MonaLisa was in mourning, so she shaved them off "but she has no eyelashes either"

• Leonardo "one of the most brillant men to EVER live" just forgot to paint them "even though it took him many years to paint this small painting with it's thin sheets of paint"

• It just may be an historical unsolved mystery.
• Leonardo might not paint it because of it would affect the Monalisa`s double expression.

If you have any more ideas please share...

Answer 3

No she does not. At the time it was fashionable to shave them off.

Answer 4

It is still being debated whether the Mona Lisa has eyebrows, but at the moment the painting just shows shadows, so it is not easy to tell if she has very light eyebrows.

Answer 5

Contemporary witnesses say she did.

Answer 6

no :)