must be noted here. The sleeves of the St. Anne are pleated in the same fashion as those of La Giocondo: the two pictures are of the same date or very near it.'[1]
But the St. Anne is known to have been painted, if not entirely finished, at Cloux between 1516 and 1517,[2] so, therefore, must have been the Louvre Mona Lisa, if Müntz be correct. Again, Raphael's study does not give any indication of this ' weird landscape,' but gives a tree on the left of the figure, as does his painting of Maddalena Doni, only in the latter it is larger and more prominent. The Isleworth Mona Lisa gives a clump of trees in the same position, and though this may be considered a mere coincidence, it is a very remarkable one. Another notable fact is the great difference between the colouring of the two Mona Lisas. The Isleworth version is painted in the subdued, sombre colours of Leonardo's work done when in his prime; while the Louvre version and the St. Anne are in much brighter and more pronounced colours. M. Passavant noticed this difference between the St. Anne and the Vièrge aux Rochers, which was undoubtedly the most finished of Leonardo's works that went to Cloux and which are now in the Louvre. But the fatal discrepancies in the Louvre Mona Lisa are: the want of the columns; the representation of bases of columns by mere daubs of brown paint; the complete absence of a shadow which the brown-daubed base of a column, on the left of the picture, should cast on the balustrade, as the light is coming from the left. It would be impossible to find such a grave omission in the minute and scrupulous work done by Leonardo da Vinci at the period (1500–1504) when this Louvre version of the Mona Lisa is supposed to have been painted; but it would be possible and even pardonable in any senile work done by him at Cloux, after he had been struck with paralysis.
25
- ↑ Müntz (vol. 2, p. 163).
- ↑ 'It does not appear probable that Leonardo painted anything in France, as Vasari tells us that the King himself could not prevail on him to finish his cartoon of Santa Anna, which he had brought from Italy, and which was afterwards painted by some of his scholars on his outlines.' Brown's 'Life of Leonardo' (p. 168).
