Page:Monograph on Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa (1915).pdf/39

 Yet the Isleworth Mona Lisa not only has the columns but has the bases beautifully moulded, with the shadow distinctly painted at an angle across the left extremity of the balustrade. Compare the two reproductions of the Mona Lisa paintings given in this book, and examine carefully Raphael's drawing, also reproduced.

If, however, the Louvre Mona Lisa were the second of the portraits seen by Fra Nuvolaria with the St. Anne in Florence in 1501 —Giocondo having received his bespoken portrait in 1505—this second portrait—also, of course, unfinished—would have remained with the unfinished St. Anne in Florence, and they together would have accompanied Leonardo finally to France in 1516, where they would have been finished. But, as Richter truly remarks, Leonardo, 'during the few years that he lived there, was in a feeble state of health'; and Cardinal d'Aragon's secretary tells us that on October 10, 1517, 'a certain paralysis has attacked his right hand,' which might account for the very imperfect bases of the suggested columns, and the total absence of the shadow even of the base; an omission which the robust Leonardo would have denounced as 'despicable' and which could not have occurred in the 1500- 1504 Mona Lisa.

So far, then, we have two paintings of Mona Lisa; one, the Isleworth picture, with an unfinished background, which supports Vasari's deliberate statement of 'unfinished' and with the columns distinct, which are verified by Raphael's drawing; the second, the Louvre picture, without columns but with a highly-finished back ground. Moreover, it is a most significant fact that the background of the St. Anne and that of the Louvre Mona Lisa are almost similar. Müntz quotes the great French artist M. Michel's description of 'the weird landscape that stretches behind the Giocondo,' he pertinently remarks, 'the same appears in the St. Anne.' All the numerous copies, early or late, French or otherwise, have this 'weird landscape' as a background. Again, Müntz says: 'A detail of costume