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January 9, 2026
Did Leonardo da Vinci paint a nude Mona Lisa? I may have just solved this centuries-old mystery
It is one of the most tantalising – and entertaining – puzzles in art, stretching from the Louvre to the Loire via, well, Norfolk. And our critic thinks he has just worked it out
TL;DR
- An 18th-century engraving by John Boydell shows a nude Mona Lisa, suggesting a popular interest in an erotic version.
- Horace Walpole believed his father, Sir Robert Walpole, owned the actual Mona Lisa, which was the basis for the engraving.
- The Houghton collection, including the supposed nude Mona Lisa, was sold to Catherine the Great and is now in the Hermitage.
- A document from 1517 records Leonardo showing visitors three paintings, one being a portrait of 'a certain Florentine woman' requested by Giuliano de' Medici, generally accepted as the Louvre's Mona Lisa.
- A painting begun in 1503 was a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo, wife of merchant Francesco del Giocondo.
- Leonardo spent time in Rome in 1513 under the patronage of Giuliano de' Medici, who had become the Pope's brother.
- A 'cartoon' dated 1514-16 in Chantilly, France, portrays a nude model in a pose similar to the Mona Lisa and shows evidence of Leonardo's style.
- Raphael's La Fornarina, painted around 1520, shares similarities with the Mona Lisa, including the pose and enigmatic smile.
- The nude Mona Lisa is suggested to have 'radicalised' the way artists painted bodies during the Renaissance.
- Leonardo's lost works, such as the erotic Leda and the Swan, suggest he was capable of creating scandalous art.
- The hypothesis is that Leonardo painted a nude Mona Lisa as a memento for Giuliano de' Medici, portraying a mistress he had to give up.
- The Mona Lisa was considered 'iconic' from the moment it was first seen, not just a modern phenomenon.
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