Secrets of the Dead (2000–…): Season 13, Episode 5 - The Mona Lisa Mystery - full transcript

Coming up,
on "Secrets of the Dead"...

her smile has captured
the world's imagination.

MAN: This woman smiling,
looking at you,

it's very intimate.

But there is
a second "Mona Lisa"

with that same enigmatic smile.

Did Leonardo da Vinci paint the
most famous work of art twice?

Now art historians
are using science

to uncover the truth.

We found that the histograms
for the two "Mona Lisa"s

are virtually identical.



"The 'Mona Lisa'
Mystery,"

on "Secrets of the Dead."

"Secrets of the Dead"
was made possible in part

by the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting

and by contributions
to your PBS station from...

She is
the most famous work of art

in the world.

Her name synonymous
with intrigue.

Her expression guards a secret
5 centuries old.

You see a face which is
just about to smile.

It's almost
a philosophical picture,

and it's a demonstration
of what painting can do.

The "Mona Lisa"
wasn't always a celebrity.

She didn't steal the spotlight
until she was stolen herself.



Vanished, hidden away
for more than two years.

In her absence, a second
"Mona Lisa" appeared.

She looked younger and fresher.

But she was unfinished.

Had Leonardo da Vinci
painted the world's

most famous portrait twice?

Evidence suggests Leonardo
worked on the "Mona Lisa"

at two different
periods in his life

more than a decade apart.

Is this missing link
an early study

for the legendary portrait?

Is it a copy from
Leonardo's studio?

Or a most cunning forgery?

Now with recently
unearthed archives

and the latest science,

experts set out
to uncover the secrets

behind her enigmatic smile...

and finally solve the mystery
of the "Mona Lisa."

August, 1911.

At the Louvre Museum in Paris,

a small portrait,
the "Mona Lisa,"

hangs in a Renaissance gallery.

Until now, she's been
a work of little renown,

but she's about
to become a sensation.

After the museum
locks its doors,

a handyman, Vincenzo Peruggia,

climbs out of hiding

and pries the portrait
from its frame.

He knows the layout
of the gallery well.

He was recently hired to do
renovation work at the Louvre.

Peruggia carefully wraps
the priceless wooden panel

in a cloth.

The next morning,
in broad daylight,

he walks out with the "Mona
Lisa" tucked under his arm.

An entire day passes
before anyone notices

the masterpiece is missing.

Then, she hits the headlines.

Until the heist,
Leonardo da Vinci's portrait

was known mainly to art experts.

Almost overnight, the "Mona
Lisa" became a household name.

The scandal had made her
a superstar.

The police interrogate
a number of suspects

but fail to zero in
on the handyman.

The "Mona Lisa" had vanished.

No one knew if she would
ever be seen again.

Around the time of
her disappearance,

an art dealer was traveling
through England

in search of rare objects.

He claimed that while visiting
an estate in Somerset,

someone made him
an intriguing offer.

The only recorded detail
is the name of the buyer--

Hugh Blaker.

The owner claimed a relative

had returned from
a grand tour of Italy,

bringing a mysterious painting
back with him.

It was a most
remarkable portrait.

At first sight, it looked like
the "Mona Lisa,"

but something about it
was different.

She seemed more youthful,

but it seemed to be
the same woman

as in the famous portrait.

She had been painted
with a familiar perfection.

Could she have been created
by Leonardo da Vinci himself?

In 1913, the "Mona Lisa"
once again made headlines

when the now-famous portrait
was returned to the Louvre.

The thief had hidden the
painting for more than two years

and was only caught while trying
to sell it in Florence.

In England, the art dealer
Hugh Blaker

allegedly bought the portrait
he was offered,

the so-called
"Isleworth Mona Lisa."

He wanted to know more about
his mysterious acquisition.

Could there actually be
two "Mona Lisa"s?

[Man speaking Italian]
TRANSLATOR: On the basis of

the knowledge we have to date,

there are two theories.

According to
the traditional theory,

there is only one portrait
in the Louvre.

The other suggests
that there are two

completely different paintings.

Rumors of
a second "Mona Lisa"

had just begun to circulate,

sparked by newly
discovered records

describing a different version
of the painting.

As an art dealer, Blaker was
likely aware of the theory.

Could he now be the proud owner

of this fabled
other "Mona Lisa"?

The mystery of the "Mona Lisa"
begins in Italy,

during the cultural explosion
of the 15th and 16th centuries--

the Renaissance.

Leonardo, a central
catalyst of the age,

artist, inventor, engineer,

was the definitive
Renaissance man.

His every act was driven
by an insatiable

scientific curiosity.

MAN: Leonardo
described himself once

as a [speaking Italian],

which can either be translated
as a disciple of experience

or as a disciple of experiment.

And throughout his life,
Leonardo was a relentless,

tough-minded experimenter.

It was, in a sense,
his creed, his belief

in the importance
of questioning, of searching,

of investigating
and experimenting.

[Man speaking Italian]

He approached
every challenge

in technology or the arts

with an unparalleled
hunger for invention.

He wants the picture
to be a total remaking

of the natural world.

He wants everything
to be in there.

He wants movement,
he wants life,

he wants objects,
he wants anatomy,

he wants geology,
he wants botany,

and in a sense, that's more even

than a moving film
could do these days.

So, in a way, it's
an impossible agenda.

He's setting a standard
for a picture

which no one, not even Leonardo,
could possibly meet.

In 1503, the master
took on a surprisingly

simple commission.

Keeping up with the nobility
in Florence,

one of the richest
city-states in Italy,

was not always
easy for Leonardo.

Leonardo's relationship
with Florence was kind of

a troubled relationship.

Florence was associated
with a world

which he might have
wanted to join

but felt excluded from,

partly from his illegitimacy,

partly for
temperamental reasons.

So, he honed his craft
and his skill here,

but he never quite felt at home.

He's even described
at one point as being

impatient with the paintbrush.

He doesn't wish to
pick up the paintbrush

because he's pursuing
so many other ideas.

Ideas can be
slow to fill the coffers,

and for Leonardo, the paintbrush
was a trusted source of revenue.

Leonardo's usual patrons
were princes
and high-ranking clerics,

people in the public eye.

Now he was being asked
to paint a portrait

of a relative unknown--
a silk merchant's wife.

Clues to the curious commission
can be found

in the library of
one of the most renowned

art collections in the world--
the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

The library holds
the first edition

of a seminal work on art
from the Italian Renaissance--

"Lives of the Most Excellent
Italian Painters,

Sculptors, and Architects,"
by Giorgio Vasari.

Published in 1550,
it's considered

the preeminent source of
information on Renaissance art.

Vasari wrote the manuscript
after Leonardo's death,

but with full access
to the artist's records

and eyewitnesses.

Vasari writes of a silk merchant
named Francesco del Giocondo,

whose sons confirmed that
Leonardo da Vinci

painted a portrait
of their mother.

Her name--Lisa.
Mona Lisa.

"Mona" is an archaic
Italian word for "lady."

The author described the
portrait in great detail.

The lashes demand the greatest
delicacy of execution.

The eyebrows could not
be more natural.

The mouth seemed in truth
to be not colors, but flesh.

[Vezzosi speaking Italian]
TRANSLATOR: In his description,

the eyelashes are mentioned
as an important characteristic.

He marks them out as
an extraordinary feature

of the painting.

But is Vasari
describing the picture

now hanging in the Louvre
behind bulletproof glass?

In this portrait,
there is no trace

of the eyelashes,
lips, and eyebrows

that so delighted
the Renaissance writer.

[Vezzosi speaking Italian]

TRANSLATOR: If we look at
the "Mona Lisa" in the Louvre,

we can see that these eyelashes
do not exist.

This raises doubts if Vasari
was familiar with the painting

in the Louvre or
if there could be

two different works.

If Vasari
was describing

the painting in the Louvre,

where are the lashes and brows?

New photo technology can peel
back the layers of history

hidden behind coats of paint.

French technician Pascal Cotte

uses cutting-edge cameras
to try to solve

the mystery of
the missing eyebrows.

A high-resolution sensor
records a series of images

at different wavelengths
of light.

COTTE: I found the eyebrows
with only 3 filters

and only in the visible range.

We don't need the infrared range
to find it,

because this is very thin

and this is very close
to the surface of the painting.

There is no clear
scientific answer

how the eyebrows disappeared.

We can only make
the supposition that someone

cleaning the varnish
on top of "Mona Lisa"

removed the eyebrows
because the eyebrows

were painted inside the varnish.

What little remains
doesn't seem to justify

Vasari's effusive account.

It could be he had
seen a different version

of the "Mona Lisa."

Many legendary paintings
have been transformed

through a murky history of
repairs and restoration.

I found myself going to many
museums and studying,

obviously, hundreds of works of
art in museums environment,

and the visitors don't realize

that most of the times,
they are looking at a surface

that is far from being
the original one.

The original one meaning
how much has changed,

how much material
has been added,

how much has decayed,

and how much is what you see

is the result of
several restorations

as well as several
cleaning jobs.

The restorer Ernst Lux

has saved many masterpieces
from decay.

He knows how the preservation
techniques of past centuries

could damage a work of art.

LUX: You have to imagine
in those times

how cleanings had been done.

There was a mixture normally of
turpentine, alcohol,

and ammonia.

Maybe added some lavender oil

or whatever, or half onions,

and all these substances
have one thing in common--

they are extremely aggressive.

So,
this could still be

the "Mona Lisa"
Vasari described--

the fine lashes and eyebrows
scrubbed away

by centuries of
harsh restoration.

But Vasari's account emphasizes

another quality
of the portrait--

one that sets it apart from
the "Mona Lisa" in the Louvre.

It was unfinished.

Is it possible he was describing
the Isleworth "Mona Lisa,"

the version Hugh Blaker
bought in England?

Today, the Isleworth "Mona Lisa"

is kept in a secret location
in Switzerland,

locked away in an armored safe.

[Beeping]

The portrait has changed hands

several times
since its discovery.

In 2008, it was acquired
by a group of

international investors.

The identity of the buyers

and the price they paid
for the painting

is a closely guarded secret.

Another feature aligns
with Vasari's description--

the background
remains unfinished.

The landscape behind the figure
is almost completely missing.

Even unfinished, it could
still be Leonardo's work.

Its incomplete state
would be typical

of a busy artist of his caliber.

Leonardo's restless mind,
his restless interest

in the world around him,
in new trains of thought,

new areas of study,
new paintings to undertake

seems to make him a man who is
always discarding and abandoning

and moving on from paintings
and leaving them unfinished.

In 1503, Leonardo was
awarded a major commission,

the most prestigious assignment
in Florence.

That same year, he began work
on the "Mona Lisa."

Leonardo was chosen
to commemorate

a famous battle on the walls
of the Palazzo Vecchio.

The Battle of Anghiari
was a decisive moment

in the city's history.

For the mural, he devised
a new untested technique.

But for once,
his ingenuity backfired.

The hot wax colors
took too long to dry,

failed to adhere, and began
to drip down the walls.

It was the most
ambitious assignment
Florence had to offer.

And Leonardo had failed.

Halfway through the job,
he threw in the towel,

leaving the unfinished
fresco behind.

There is nothing left
of it today.

It was not the first time
he had abandoned a commission.

Several of his most famous works
remain incomplete.

I think Leonardo was the sort of
artist who, in a sense,

never thought pictures
were finished.

He could always see
additional possibilities.

He could always see something
that seemed to him a bit better,

so, he never settled
in that way.

It's possible Leonardo
also lost interest

halfway through painting Lisa,
the wife of the silk merchant.

[Horse nickers]

Comparing the portraits,
the two women

are clearly the same person,

but in the unfinished version,

she seems slightly younger.

Could this be a clue
as to when she was painted?

Evidence regarding the timing
recently came to light

at the University of Heidelberg
in Germany.

Conservators at the library
stumbled across

a handwritten note in the margin
of a 16th-century book.

[Woman speaking German]
TRANSLATOR: One early
owner of this book

was Agostino Vespucci.

He was personally acquainted
with Leonardo.

We can assume that he had access
to Leonardo's studio,

that he'd seen his pictures,
and after a visit,

he made the handwritten
note in his book.

He writes that Leonardo
usually completes

the main parts of his subjects

and often leaves the rest
of the painting unfinished.

He cites the portrait
of Lisa del Giocondo

as an example, and dates it
October 1503.

In October 1503, the
portrait had not been finished.

[Man speaking Italian]

At that time,
Lisa del Giocondo

was a young woman of 24.

Her husband hired Leonardo
to paint her portrait

while she was expecting
their second child.

[Speaking
Italian]

Although she would
one day be celebrated

as Leonardo's
most beguiling muse,

it's likely she spent
very little time

with the master himself.

KEMP: The artist
would have made a sketch.

They would have made
a likeness of some sort.

And that probably was
about the end of it.

The sitter wouldn't be there.

This idea of the sitter
who sits in a chair,

the artist sits there,
and you sit there

while he spends ages and ages
making the portrait,

that wouldn't happen at all.

For Leonardo,
the style of painting

is a departure from the grand
scale of his usual work--

imperious political portraits
and somber religious scenes.

KEMP: She's a bourgeois
Florentine lady.

and this is
an intimate portrait.

It's not a great
public portrait.

This woman smiling, looking
at you, it's very intimate.

NICHOLL: We see a face
which is just about to smile,

and so the painting
contains the future moment

in which Lisa del Giocondo
will break into that smile.

But she hasn't done quite yet.

Mona Lisa herself
is a young woman

just on the brink of changing,

because she's now a mother,
she's fleshing out,

she's a beautiful, young woman

who is going through physical
and personal changes,

because she is now a young
mother, a young wife.

A portrait by Leonardo
would surely have been

a major expense for the family,

but no record of
the commission exists.

The question of why
continues to puzzle

historians like
Giuseppe Pallanti.

[Pallanti speaking Italian]

TRANSLATOR: I've conducted
extensive research

in the archives
in Florence, including

the Archivio degli Innocenti.

But I have found no
documentary evidence

of a contract between
Francesco del Giocondo

and Leonardo.

Florence's tax system
required citizens

to submit detailed records
of all income and expenses.

Financial transactions
and assets

were meticulously archived,

a rich resource for historians.

[Pallanti speaking Italian]

TRANSLATOR: The document that
all art historians

have been looking for
would prove

that the portrait
had been paid for,

but unfortunately there is
not a single piece of evidence

to suggest that
Francesco del Giocondo

made any payment to Leonardo.

From 1503 to 1506,

when Leonardo lived in Florence,

there is no record of
the Giocondo family

spending any money at all
on a painting.

Perhaps they never received
the finished portrait.

[Speaking Italian]
TRANSLATOR: Why had Leonardo
not delivered the painting?

There is no logical explanation.

It was in Leonardo's interest
to hand over the painting

and receive his fee,

and Francesco would also
have had an interest

in owning a picture painted by
the most famous

painter of the age.

There is no rational
reason why Leonardo

should have painted the picture
and then kept it for himself.

It could be that
the portrait wasn't finished

and Leonardo never
collected on his fee.

But then, what did he do
with the painting?

If he kept it for himself,
it must have stayed with him

for a very long time,

possibly for the rest
of his life.

Leonardo spent his final years
in France

at the invitation of
King Francis I.

He lived in a small chateau
in the Loire Valley until 1517,

when he died and was buried
in the local chapel.

[Hoofbeats on road]

Two years before his death,
an important guest

would leave a tantalizing clue.

[Horse whinnies, nickers]

The visitor's name--
Cardinal Luigi d'Aragona.

He arrived with his private
secretary--Antonio de Beatis.

De Beatis recounted
the cardinal's visit

in a detailed diary.

The aging Leonardo
showed the cardinal

several of his works.

[Men speaking Italian]

"St. John
the Baptist,"

"The Virgin and Child
with St. Anne"...

and a portrait
de Beatis describes

as a certain Florentine woman
done from life.

Nearly 400 years later, in 1905,
the diaries were published.

They set off a storm
of speculation

about Leonardo's
most famous work.

The diaries state
that the "Mona Lisa"

was commissioned by the late
Giuliano de' Medici.

This contradicts accounts that
Leonardo had been hired

by Lisa's husband,
the silk merchant

Francesco del Giocondo.

[Speaking Italian]

TRANSLATOR: The two documents
by Vasari and de Beatis

differ with regard to the dates
and the context.

They provide no clear answer.

But it is clear that
Francesco del Giocondo

and Giuliano de' Medici
cannot both be the client.

This supports the theory
of two different portraits.

For both accounts
to be accurate,

there would have to be
two versions of the portrait:

the finished masterpiece painted
for Giuliano de' Medici

and an unfinished version
commissioned by Lisa's husband.

The tale of two "Mona Lisas"
quickly spread throughout
the art world,

to people like dealer
Hugh Blaker,

o just a few years later
claimed to have discovered

his Isleworth "Mona Lisa."

Had he perhaps not
discovered it at all?

Could he have
painted it himself

or commissioned
a talented forger

to re-create
the unfinished portrait?

KEMP: Leonardo is probably
the most copied artist
of his generation,

and it goes through
the 16th century.

They keep making versions
and copies and so on

and it clearly was
a famous look.

You know, people liked pictures
that said Leonardo to them.

Hundreds of copies
of the "Mona Lisa" circulate
throughout the world

from different periods
and of varying quality.

It's possible the Isleworth
"Mona Lisa" is one of them.

As a forgery, its genius would
lie in its obvious departures
from the version in the Louvre.

No one would suspect
it was an attempted copy.

It would be seen
as an additional "Mona Lisa"...

one that had
never been finished,

as the Renaissance writer
Vasari described.

The timing of her discovery
is also dubious.

The Isleworth
"Mona Lisa" appeared

just after the original
was looted from the Louvre,

a time when a forger
could be tempted to
cash in on her absence.

So is the Isleworth
"Mona Lisa" simply a fake?

LUX: When I make an examination
of a painting after the first
view of the main side,

I just turn it over
and look at the back side

because I can see a lot
of information of the history

of this painting
on the back side, also.

You have all the dirt
of the centuries.

You have the inscriptions.
You have collector numbers.

You have, maybe, scenes,
stamps, whatever.

So the back side is normally

a much more unchanged part

of the history of the painting
than the front side.

The back of
the Isleworth remains
hidden from scrutiny.

It was glued on top
of a second canvas in
the early 20th century.

For Ernst Lux,
this alone is suspicious.

If you want to produce
a forgery, this re-lining
saves a lot of work

because you don't have
to imitate the back side
of the painting

with the dust, inscription,
with the history.

In many cases,

the faking of the back side is
much more difficult

than to fake the front side
of the painting.

Perhaps
a brilliant counterfeiter had
thought of nearly everything...

but he could
never have anticipated
the technology to come.

At the Swiss Federal Institute
of Technology in Zurich,

experts used carbon-14 dating
to authenticate ancient objects.

Since canvas is woven
from plant fibers,

a painting makes
a perfect subject
for the test.

The challenge lies in sampling
only the painting itself,

not an easy task
when the canvas has been

re-lined and glued
to a second layer.

MAN: We need to take
this sample

only from the original canvas,
which gives the right age.

If we mix it with the glue
of the other canvas,

we get wrong results,
and it's very difficult

to purify this material
so that we extract

and insulate
the original fibers.

Aside from
being unfinished,

the background of the Isleworth
"Mona Lisa" features

another key difference
from her counterpart.

In the Isleworth, she is
flanked by two pillars,

while in the Louvre
"Mona Lisa,"

the bases of the columns
can just barely be seen.

Why would a counterfeiter
have added these columns?

Art historians
had long assumed

that the "Mona Lisa"
in the Louvre had been trimmed,

10 centimeters off
of each side.

If this were true, the columns
would have once been visible.

The theory seems
to have been supported by
an illustrious witness,

the Renaissance
painter Raphael.

Around 1504, the young talent
had just moved to Florence

and is said to have paid a visit
to Leonardo's studio.

It was probably during
the visit that he drew

a highly informative sketch
of one of Leonardo's works.

KEMP: There is a very nice
pen-and-ink drawing of a woman

sitting at--with a balcony
with columns down the side,

which clearly is
a kind of revision

of the "Mona Lisa"
on his own behalf.

What the drawing
doesn't reveal is whether
the painting was finished.

KEMP: So there was
obviously enough to see

that the basic composition
was there: the figure,

the pose, even
the columns and so on.

They were certainly known
in Florence,

and Raphael would have known
that before 1507, 1508

when he left Florence.

Which painting,
which columns had Raphael seen?

The mystery persisted
until 2004,

when restorers at the Louvre
removed the frame from
the "Mona Lisa"

and discovered the painting
had never been trimmed.

There were never any columns
in the portrait.

The revelation means
any version of the "Mona Lisa"

with visible columns is
most likely a fake,

based on a false idea.

But what of Raphael's drawing?

A comparison of his sketch
with the Isleworth "Mona Lisa"

reveals that the columns are
strikingly similar.

Does this mean Raphael had seen
the Isleworth "Mona Lisa"
in Leonardo's studio,

making it an early version
of the famous portrait?

Or is it a later forgery,
based on the now-debunked myth

that at some stage
the columns had been cut off?

Determining when
she was painted proves more
challenging than expected.

Her exact age eludes even
the experts in Zurich.

SYNAL: In general,
the time range between the end

of the 15th century and
the middle of the 17th century

is a little bit difficult
because the C-14 concentration

in the atmosphere
has changed a lot,

and this makes it very difficult
to get precise dates

during this time range.

The analysis reveals

that the canvas of
the Isleworth "Mona Lisa"

was probably manufactured

between 1500 and 1650.

It could have been made
during Leonardo's lifetime.

The results
which we have now

fit the characteristics
of a canvas originating

from the end of
the 15th century

or the beginning
of the 16th century.

[Donkey breathing heavily]

The canvas fits
the timeline,

but did Leonardo's hand
apply the paint?

NICHOLL: Beneath him, there is
a hierarchy of assistants,

pupils, and junior garzone,
as they are called--

lads who are helping--
and each has their part.

Leonardo's
assistants were often
skilled artists themselves.

He devised the concepts
and rendered the main
features of the painting,

but for the background
and tiresome details,

he was happy to pass
the paintbrush to an apprentice.

SERACINI: Obviously
the style, the idea,

the creativity of the subject,

we tend to believe that was
the main work of the master.

But the execution, per se,

to think that only
the master would paint,

that's an illusion.

The production of art
in the Renaissance was based
on division of labor.

A flourishing studio
like Leonardo's

would otherwise be unable
to keep up with demand.

This also freed up time
for Leonardo to get
creative in other ways.

NICHOLL: The "Mona Lisa"
certainly bears witness,

or contains the evidence of,

Leonardo's experimentation
with different techniques

and with different
actual physical paint

and varnish and glazes

as the years went by.

Of course, painters had
their own recipes
for making paint.

It wasn't just a question
of going down to the shop

and buying a series
of bottles or tins of paint.

You mixed your own paints,
using particular pigments,

using particular bases,
using particular mixes

of oil and varnish
and types of oil.

Today, this
artistic alchemy can reveal
the signature of a painter.

To find it, researchers take
microscopic samples of
the pigment.

Will paint from the Isleworth
"Mona Lisa" expose her creator
as a fraud?

The samples are cast in resin
and examined under a microscope,

revealing the structure
of the painting,

how the pigments were
mixed and layered.

The key is to determine
whether the paint's recipe

is consistent with mixtures used
during Leonardo's day.

Any pigments invented
after his death

would expose
the portrait as a fake.

The tests reveal
that no modern materials
were used in the Isleworth.

It seems to have been created
while Leonardo was alive.

PASCAL COTTE:

But was the portrait
painted by the master himself,

or if not by Leonardo,
by someone very close to him?

One of his students
nicknamed Salaí was
more than just a pupil.

NICHOLL:
Salaí was also, according
to contemporary evidence,

and certainly according to
our own suppositions now,

Leonardo's lover,

Leonardo's confidant, friend,

right-hand man, and bedmate.

Vasari says it in
a rather roundabout way,

but makes it pretty clear
that Leonardo loves Salaí.

It's possible
that Leonardo's young lover,

himself a talented artist,
began a copy

of his mentor's "Mona Lisa."

NICHOLL: So, to say there are
two--or more than two;

there are several versions of
the "Mona Lisa"--

is not the same as saying
Leonardo himself

painted two entirely
separate paintings--

one in 1503,
the other much later.

My own view is that
the other "Mona Lisas"--

that is to say, the ones
that aren't the one
sitting in the Louvre--

are studio productions.

If Salaí
copied the "Mona Lisa"
in Leonardo's studio,

it's possible
he wasn't the only one.

At the Prado Museum in Madrid,
another copy was recently found

to show corrections to the head,
shoulder, and fingers--

identical to corrections found
on the version in the Louvre.

Someone had altered the copy

at the same time
as the original.

KEMP: The making of copies
in studios or versions
of pictures was very common.

If you look
at the great artists
of the time,

most of them would have studios
and smaller-scale pictures.

Things like Madonnas would be
produced in some numbers,

and the pupils would
assist in that,

and Leonardo wasn't
different in that respect.

It was clearly a way
of producing small-scale,
Leonardo-brand pictures.

Leonardo himself also says
you should have 3 types
of picture.

You should have
the top-quality ones,

which we may think of
as the "Mona Lisa,"
for instance;

you would have
the middle-quality ones, perhaps
the "Madonna of the Yarnwinder,"

a small-scale Madonna produced
by Leonardo in studio;

and then you had other ones
which were kind of OK,

but these basically are
studio products,

so there's good evidence
to think that Leonardo
had grades of pictures.

But is the evidence
strong enough to say

the Isleworth came
from Leonardo's studio?

The canvas is the right age,

the pigments are typical
of those used during
Leonardo's life,

but one major difference calls
the Isleworth into question.

All of Leonardo's
known paintings--

"The Virgin and Child
with Saint Anne,"

"Saint John the Baptist,"

"The Virgin of the Rocks"--
they are all painted on wood,

unlike the Isleworth.

Why would he make
a canvas version
of a painting on wood?

The Vatican Library holds
a valuable collection

of Leonardo's writing
called the Codex Urbinas.

In his "Treatise on Painting,"

Leonardo devotes
an entire chapter

to techniques
for working with canvas.

He clearly researched
and possibly tried his hand

at painting on canvas.

Could the Isleworth
"Mona Lisa" be the result

of one of these experiments?

An X-ray of the painting
offers a clue.

LUX: If you look at X-rays
of paintings by Leonardo

or his contemporaries,

they all have
a blurry appearance.

This is caused by the lead white
in the preparation layer,

and this lead white
blocks the X-rays.

If you look at the X-ray of
the Isleworth "Mona Lisa,"

you see a very clear image,

and this shows that
there is more or less

no lead white
in the preparation layer.

Leonardo and his contemporaries

more or less always used
lead white in the preparation.

NARRATOR:
But perhaps not always.

In his "Treatise,"
he describes in detail

how to prepare
a canvas for painting,

but never mentions
the use of lead white.

The omission is peculiar,

but perhaps not for a man always
on the edge of innovation.

KEMP: What scientific
examination is telling us

about Leonardo's technique is
it's very variable.

It's almost as if he tackles
each picture on a new basis.

NARRATOR:
When painting on wood,

a base layer
of lead white brightens

and enhances the colors.

It's essential for achieving
the 3-dimensional effect

Leonardo realized
with the "Mona Lisa."

But his mastery of mixing
and applying the colors

was an art form in itself.

KEMP: What we do see,
though, is his ability

to control oil glazes,
these very thin layers of color,

and to lay them on top
of each other

in a way which is
not disastrous,

because if you lay
drying pigment on top

of pigment that isn't dry,
you get all sorts of trouble.

Leonardo's technique
relied on perfect preparation.

[Leonardo grumbling
in Italian]

All pigments
in his studio had to comply
with his exacting standards.

Not every color made the cut.

Leonardo's distinct use of color
could have left clues

hidden in his work,
an artistic signature

that could accurately trace
a painting to the master.

One man is convinced
he can find it.

At the University
of California in San Diego,

research physicist John Asmus is
one of the few people

in the world to examine
both "Mona Lisas."

He believes he can identify
the hand of a genius

by comparing the statistical
characteristics

of color and brightness.

ASMUS: When a forger does a copy

or a copyist does a copy,

something of
that copyist's technique

finds its way into the painting,
and a casual observer says,

"These two paintings
are the same."

But if you look
at the statistics

and the numerical variations
on those statistics,

you always find differences,

so we digitized both
of the "Mona Lisas"

and we compared the statistics
of the pixels--

their intensities,
their standard deviation,
their distributions--

and we thought
that this would be a way of
scientifically validating

what connoisseurs see
when they look at
these two paintings.

Analyzing the scans
pixel by pixel,

Asmus compares the flow
of light and color,

right down to
the individual brush stroke.

Even he is stunned
by the results.

And we found that the histograms
for the two "Mona Lisas"

are virtually identical.

You could switch them
in front of me, and I couldn't
tell which was which.

If you look at
the statistics of this,

I would say
that it's 99% certain

that the two "Mona Lisas"
were done by the same artist.

NARRATOR:
If the results are correct,

why would Leonardo da Vinci have
painted the same subject twice?

The answer might be found
in Rome, where,

late in life, Leonardo
perfected his technique.

NICHOLL: We don't
really fully know

what he was experimenting on

in the Belvedere in Rome,

but it seems to have been
some idea of, as he put it

in one note,
"capturing sunlight,"

and has probably
contributed much

to his rather dubious
reputation in Rome

as something approaching

a sort of magician
or a shaman.

Many experts believe
Leonardo's superb handling

of light, color, and shadow
reached the peak of perfection

in his final work, a picture
of Saint John the Baptist.

It was most likely
commissioned by Pope Leo X.

Leonardo's companion Salaí is
thought to have served

as the model for the saint.

Today, the picture hangs
in the Louvre, alongside
two other works:

"The Virgin and Child
with Saint Anne,"
from the same period,

and the "Mona Lisa."

In all 3, he used
his famous sfumato technique

to mimic how the human eye
perceives subtle changes

in color and light.

NICHOLL: Leonardo in Rome
was experimenting

with finer and finer
glazes and varnishes,

which he used
to layer again and again

over the paint surface,

creating that sort of
shimmering,

mirage-like quality.

And Leonardo,
particularly in Rome,

in his later years in Rome,

was working almost
like an alchemist

on the preparation of these
very subtle oils and varnishes.

And indeed, the Pope, Leo X,

the Medici pope who was there
in Rome at the same time

and who had rather a jaundiced
or skeptical view of Leonardo,

complained about the fact
that he was always at work

on his sort of chemical
pots and pans,

producing these varnishes,
when he should be getting on
with the painting.

Well, of course, Leonardo would
perhaps have replied, "I am
getting on with the painting

because this is
an essential part
of the operation."

Was the "Mona Lisa"
also painted

in this late period
of artistic refinement?

In the "Mona Lisa,"
when he comes to do that,
everything is working.

You know, it's--
everything works:

the veils, the transparency,
the opaque pigments.

He's got it all
under control, so this,

begun probably in 1503,

is a point of complete mastery
after all the experimentation.

PASCAL COTTE:

The "Mona Lisa"
from the Louvre consists of

up to 30 super-fine films
of paint with so many layers,

the naked eye can no longer see
individual brush strokes.

Is it possible Leonardo wanted
to try his new technique

on an old work he had
abandoned long ago?

Perhaps he saw the original as
a failed experiment on canvas.

Now he could re-create
the alluring Florentine woman

in all her magnificence, using
his recent artistic advances.

The similarities
between the two portraits

even go beyond the obvious.

Though the size
of the Isleworth is larger,

the framing wider,
when the scale is adjusted,

the figures are exactly
the same size,

with identical proportions.

The biggest difference
between the two paintings

is, in fact, not
their appearance,

but their condition.

In contrast to her look-alike
in the Louvre,

the passage of time
has left little trace

on the Isleworth "Mona Lisa."

LUX: The unusual thing,
looking at this painting,

is the nearly perfect condition.

You only have
some tiny losses,

minor retouches,

no damages of
e painting surface.

On all pieces of art
I have worked on as a restorer,

or I have done researches,
they're looking completely
different,

much more damaged
because of the time.

So my impression is

that this painting is--

couldn't be 500 years old.

It seems unfathomable
that the Isleworth "Mona Lisa"

could have been stored
under perfect conditions
for 500 years...

remaining completely
unknown to the world

until an art dealer
stumbled across it

just when the Louvre
"Mona Lisa" went missing.

LUX: So it needs a lot
of explanation to bring this...

painting into the direction
of being a Leonardo.

The easy explanation,
I think,

is that it's not done
by Leonardo.

Others say
if Leonardo painted one,
he painted them both.

ASMUS: The weight
of the evidence is
that it had to be done

by the same artist
with the same hand,
using the same technique.

Some believe
the "Mona Lisa" mystery
has been solved.

For others, there is still
not enough evidence
to say for certain.

Even with the most
sophisticated science,

it's not easy
to outwit a genius,

whether prankster or prodigy.

"Mona Lisa" may never
divulge her secrets.

SERACINI: There is
no way today that--

no exam, no sets of exams,

no single scientist,
no group of scientists

that today will be
able to identify

the artist who made any work
of art, including Leonardo.

possible in part
that today will be
able to identify

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for Public Broadcasting

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to your PBS station from...

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