I was thrilled to read that the “Mona Lisa” has given up yet another secret.
Scientists who devote their lives to such matters got an X-ray to look into the chemical skeleton of a little teeny bit of paint from the treasured artwork, and now they know more than they used to know.
Look in your mailbox for the latest issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society (we all subscribe!) and you'll find the article that says Leonardo da Vinci was experimenting with new types of paint when he painted Mona way back in the 16th Century.
Leonardo painted the portrait on a panel of poplar wood, and the scientists have concluded that he mixed up his own based layer to prepare the panel. It's a distinctive chemical preparation, and painters in the pre-Amazon had to make up their own supplies.
In the first layer of paint, researchers found a compound known as plumbonacrite. This proves the long-held theory that Leonardo used lead oxide powder stirred into his paint to thicken it and make it dry faster.
I don't know how they got the paint fragment, but they got a little chunk that was no larger than the diameter of a human hair from the top right corner of the masterpiece.
The piece of paint was then put into a synchrotron, a machine that accelerates particles to almost the speed of light. It's such a great device that McDonald's is considering buying hundreds of them to install as soft ice cream dispensers, since the ones they have are always breaking down.
You'll get your ice cream so fast at lunchtime, it'll be served with your breakfast!
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