Three near-invisible drawings discovered on back of Da Vinci masterpiece

Three near-invisible drawings discovered on back of Da Vinci masterpiece

entertainment.timesonline.co.uk

The mysterious sketches, which were found when the painting, Virgin and Child With Saint Anne, was taken down for experts to determine whether it could be restored, may be by the Renaissance artist himself, according to the museum in Paris. A photograph with an infrared camera in the Louvre's laboratory confirmed his suspicion and found two other sketches invisible to the naked human eye next to the horse's head.

These were of a human skull and of the infant Jesus with a Lamb — a drawing reminiscent of the celebrated painting on the other side of the popular boards.

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[edit on 12/18/2008 by Badge01]

Is ths part of the Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code makes a lot of claims about art and the Christian Bible. Of all the disputed statements in the book, these can be the hardest to prove or quantify. Although some people spend their entire lives studying and interpreting art or religious scriptures, both fields are by nature imprecise. It can be impossible to determine an artist's actual intent for a particular piece or the exact meaning behind a particular religious passage.

According to the novel, Leonardo placed hidden symbols and codes in his paintings. For example, the book makes a lot of assertions about the "Mona Lisa,"

I wonder what Leonardo was up to?

entertainment.timesonline.co.uk
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[edit on 113131p://amvam by yenko13]

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[edit on 12/18/2008 by Badge01]

Most likely these were original sketches of ideas which were simply painted over.


As an artist, I do that a lot. Helps to save on canvas if I get inspired by something else during the sketching phase.

I can barely make out the horse head/skull thing other than that it looks like just old dirty canvas.



I am going to have to go with HunkaHunka on this and say it was a way to save on canvas. Canvas is expensive to just toss away without any real use but even more so in that time.

Raist

Some of the Dutch masters works I read about have complete paintings underneath those that are considered priceless today. If a painting didn't sell they didn't have the extra cash to pay for more canvas so they just painted over what was there till they got what was saleable!

Zindo