Ruling out a fake

THE scientific evidence that Leonardo da Vinci painted the Earlier Mona Lisa is verified by 24 out of 27 experts in the field. Professor Jean-Pierre Isbouts, author of The Mona Lisa Myth and director of the eponymous film, says it wasn't a question to him when he saw the painting.

"The delicate shading and the chiaroscuro dark-and-light effect which da Vinci was a master of is evident. Italian artists in the Renaissance were obsessed with lines, and they filled in the lines with colour, but da Vinci thought in three-dimensional terms and soft modelling and light," Dr Isbouts elaborates.

There are many points of difference between the portraits of the earlier and the late Mona Lisa. One is that the earlier Mona Lisa was painted on canvas, which was a new material at that time as most painters painted on wood. The later Mona Lisa is painted on poplar wood.