Curators have spent the better part of a year removing black paint from another Mona Lisa painting, thinking for years it was just a copy of the original. Turns out, it was dates back to the original and was painted alongside DiVinci's possibly by an apprentice.
IR also revealed the copy’s underdrawings, sketches that painters make before they start with the paint. The Louvre took IR images of the Mona Lisa in 2004. When the Prado curators compared the two sets of underdrawings, they found that they matched, suggesting that the copy was made contemporaneously with the original, following the changes to the composition as the master drew them before the final version was painted. There are documentary sources that attest to Leonardo having his students paint alongside him in the studio, but this is the first time we have IR evidence that strongly indicates contemporaneous painting.
--------------Description by Warholian
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