A British psychiatrist claims to have developed new evidence suggesting that Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting of the enigmatic Mona Lisa is in fact an inverted self-portrait, The Times reported Monday.
Many theories have been put forward to explain why no model or commissioner has ever been found for the mysterious painting with which da Vinci was believed to be infatuated. He kept the work, which he started in 1503, with him until his death in Paris 16 years later.Now new evidence has been published to suggest the picture was in fact a self-portrait and that Leonardo painted himself as a woman to come to terms with his own sexuality.
"The face looks as though it is the wrong way round. The key to its mystery is that it is a mirror image," The Times quoted Dr. Digby Quested, registrar at London's Maudsley hospital, as saying.
"The painting is a self-portrait in inversion, both with regard to laterality and gender," he said.
Quested said that men smile more from one side of their face than the other, which is exactly what the Mona Lisa was doing. By reversing the portrait the face becomes more appealing, he said.
"There was evidence that (Leonardo) was homosexual and he may have felt trapped in his sexuality." Quested said.
Writing in the Bulletin of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Quested said he examined theories expounded in the 1980s about computer-aided comparisons of the Mona Lisa's face with that of a Leonardo self-portrait. The result was an exact alignment.
The face of a statue of David, cast by Leonardo's tutor, Andrea del Verrocchio, for which the young Leonardo was thought to have been a model, bears a striking resemblance to the Mona Lisa's. X-rays of the painting have also revealed a bearded face, the newspaper said.
Quested said Leonardo was left-handed and could have created the inverted image unintentionally but added that it seemed more likely he did it intentionally as a sign of his true emotions.
"I believe Da Vinci worked it out. He may have shown the finished face to others who commented on the strangeness of the smile and he tried to work out why this was so. Being left-handed and producing mirror-writing, he must have been interested in the idea that two halves of a face can convey different messages," Quested was quoted as saying.