Mr. McCurdy tries to account for this statement of Leonardo's in the following manner:—
- 'The Cardinal of Aragon, on visiting the painter at Amboise in 1517, was shown a portrait of a certain Florentine lady, painted from life, at the request of Giuliano de' Medici. This must have reference to a picture painted in Rome (for there only the connection existed between Leonardo and his patron) and painted presumably before January, 1515, when, as Leonardo records, "Giuliano set out to go and marry a wife in Savoy."'[1]
If Mr. McCurdy's theory be correct and the picture was painted in Rome before 1515, why did Giuliano de' Medici order the portrait of a Florentine lady instead of a Roman lady, since he and the master were then in Rome? And why did he not get his picture on his return with his wife to Rome in the February, or before they left again in the July. His conclusion as to the fate of the Florentine Lady picture is that ' it cannot now be identified.' But surely this picture, of which there is a living record by the master himself, could not have completely vanished, except by design, from the quiet retreat at Cloux.
Müntz dismisses the fate of the portrait of the Florentine Lady by suggesting 'that it is hardly probable' that it was the Mona Lisa, which, 'however that may have been, it is certain that this artistic gem was acquired by Francis I.' But surely Müntz's doubt is not as strong as the sequence that it must have been the Mona Lisa, unless it was a portrait by Leonardo that was wilfully destroyed after the famous interview at Cloux, since there is no trace of it whatever after that occasion, except as the Mona Lisa, now in the Louvre.
Again, M. Reinach says it is not proved that the portrait shown at Cloux was the Mona Lisa, for if it were we could then but conclude that Leonardo had either painted a mistress of Giuliano de' Medici to his order; or that Giocondo had left his wife's portrait on Leonardo's hands, which was afterwards obtained by Francis I either by purchase from Leonardo, or from his legatee Melzi, or by seizure; or purchased after Giocondo's death. In reply to thesesuggestions, let me point out that Leonardo had not the time during his short stay of a week or so in Florence in 1513 to paint from life a mistress of his new patron; nor is it probable that he could have painted her in Rome, if she were there, while he was lodged in the Vatican, or while travelling about as he did when not in the Vatican.
31
- ↑ 'Leonardo da Vinci,' by Edward McCurdy, M.A. (p. 65).
