X-rays reveal a new secret in the Mona Lisa painting

“Mona Lisa” revealed another of its secrets.

Using X-rays to examine the chemical composition of a famous piece of artwork, scientists have delved a little deeper into the techniques Leonardo da Vinci used to paint the image of the Woman with the Mysterious Smile.

The research, published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, indicates that the Renaissance master, famous for his curiosity, culture, and creativity, decided to conduct experiments when he undertook to paint the Mona Lisa in the early 16th century.

A team of French and British scholars and art historians discovered that the recipe that Leonardo used as a base when preparing the poplar wood painting differed from the one he used in the painting itself.

“He loved to experiment and each of his paintings was artistically very different from the others,” said chemist Victor Gonzalez, lead author of the study and a member of the National Center for Scientific Research, France’s main scientific research body.

“In this case, it’s interesting to see that there is actually a specific technology for the Mona Lisa base,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Researchers found a rare lead carbonate compound in the first layer of paint. The discovery confirmed what had until then been a hypothesis of art historians: that Leonardo may have used lead oxide powder to thicken the paint and speed up its drying when he began working on the picture that viewers now contemplate from behind protective glass in Paris. museum.