A hidden portrait of a second woman has allegedly been found underneath the layers of paint in Leonardo da Vinci's famous portrait of the Mona Lisa.
According to the Daily Mail, the discovery was made by Pascal Cotte, a French engineer who had access to the painting in 2004, and has since used his own technology — called the Layer Amplification Method (LAM) — to reveal the supposed second portrait.
"My scientific imagery technique takes us into the heart of the paint-layers of the world's most famous picture and reveals secrets that have remained hidden for 500 years," Cotte said in a statement. "The results shatter many myths and alter our vision of Leonardo's masterpiece forever."
The BBC reported that the technology projects a series of intense lights on to the painting, and takes highly refined measurements of the lights' reflections.
"We can now analyze exactly what is happening inside the layers of the paint and we can peel like an onion all the layers of the painting. We can reconstruct all the chronology of the creation of the painting," he said.
After Cotte's announcement, which was accompanied by a recreation of the portrait he said he found, The Louvre Museum declined to comment for the time being, saying it "was not part of the scientific team."
Da Vinci is believed to have completed the portrait between 1503 and 1517.
It is widely believed that the woman depicted is Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine silk merchant.
Cotte, however, thinks the hidden portrait is another woman.
"When I finished the reconstruction of Lisa Gherardini, I was in front of the portrait and she is totally different to Mona Lisa today. This is not the same woman," he said.
Other's however, took a look at Cotte's recreation of the second portrait, and speculated that it is the same woman.
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