is the Pomona[1] in Berlin the one supposed to have been painted by the master? These two pictures may be the same as were at Fontainebleau, mentioned by Lomazzo, though they differ slightly with some of the details given in his descriptions of the pictures. In any case, this is a mere suggestion made in order to account for the two attributed Leonardo paintings that disappeared from the Fontainebleau Collection.
There is one other factor of some significance in connection with the Mona Lisa portrait that should be taken into account, and that is that prior to its painting the Giocondos had suffered a great bereavement in the death of their little child. Vasari tells us that Leonardo, while painting Madonna Lisa Giocondo's portrait, entertained her with singers and jesters' who might make her remain merry, in order to take away that melancholy which painters are often wont to give to their portraits.'[2] Was it not more likely that the master did this to distract her from her thoughts and sorrow—as indeed M. Salomon Reinach has truly remarked:—
- 'Mona Lisa had lost an only daughter, she was a distressed mother. Leonardo, when beginning to paint her portrait, about 1501, found she looked dejected, and, in order to elicit a smile from her, he called in jesters and musicians. Vasari's story is true, though he himself missed the reason and point of it.'[3]
Moreover, as M. Reinach says, this 'distressed mother,' when the portrait was painted, wore a transparent black veil over her head, had on a sombre dress, which, with a complete absence of jewellery or any sort of ornament, show that she was ' still in mourning';[4] and this fixes the date of the sittings as in 1500, her child having died in June, 1499.[5]
But I ask in all seriousness: Does the Louvre Mona Lisa represent the idea of a sorrowing mother painted for a husband who shares her grief? Scarcely so. Is it not more of a tone to suit the whimsical fancy of a Louis XII, a Giuliano de' Medici, or a Francis I? Yet the Isleworth Mona Lisa emphatically does. The
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- ↑ 'Among the rare works of Francesco Melzi, there is an excellent representation of this mythical scene (Pomona) in the painting in the Berlin Gallery (No. 222), the figures in which are life-size. The head of Pomona is painted with special charm, and in the other parts of the picture Leonardo's influence is clearly discernible.' Richter's 'Life of Leonardo,' p. 104.
- ↑ Vasari (vol. 4, p. 101).
- ↑ Article by M. Salomon Reinach in the 'Art Journal' (p. 22), 1912.
- ↑ M. Reinach in an article in the 'Bulletin des Musées de France,' 1901 (p. 21). See Appendix 5.
- ↑ Müntz (vol. 2, p. 154).
