Page:Monograph on Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa (1915).pdf/36

 France within a month after. Now, is it likely, or even probable, that Francis I, immersed in affairs of state, after an arduous campaign, should have taken Leonardo aside, mayhap during the Concordat, handed him 4,000 gold crowns, and told him to go to Florence at once and purchase from Giocondo the portrait of his wife? Is it not more probable, aye, almost certain, that Giocondo kept his dead wife's portrait until his own death in 1528, immediately after which troublous times came for Florence, ending in the famous siege of the city in 1530, and after the turmoil of that great struggle the unfinished Mona Lisa portrait may have passed unobserved into the outer world, when its fate, like that of many another masterpiece, became unknown? This is far more probable, under all the circumstances I have enumerated, than that Francis I purchased this picture from Giocondo direct or from any outsider after his death.

Be this as it may, however, I am convinced that the face, the bust and hands of the unfinished Isleworth Mona Lisa are from Leonardo's brush and from none other; and it represents much more the tone and character of the work he did between 1500 and 1506 than does the Louvre version.