Art's celebrated muse Mona Lisa had 'wider smile' and eyebrows

0 Comments | AFP, October, 2007

PARIS (AFP) — Art's most celebrated muse, the Mona Lisa, had eyelashes, eyebrows, a wider smile and carried a blanket on her knees, says a French scientist and inventor of a new all-seeing "multispectral" camera.

Armed with his 240-megapixel camera, engineer Pascal Cotte joined a team of scientists who worked on the 500-year-old painting three years ago to uncover what he calls the "24 secrets" of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece.

Speaking to AFP after presenting the results of the study in San Francisco, Cotte said the camera's infrared ray penetrated the picture layer "seeing the entire spectrum of colour through three layers of paint."

The details unveiled "are not necessarily unknown to art historians but were revealed with amazing precision in just one...