Digital BW, The Print

Léonard de Vinci's 500 year old painting, "La Jaconde" aka "Mona Lisa"
has found a new home at the Musée du Louvre, Paris and will be again
shown to the public starting today.

Vinci's famous painting will be shown with Veronese's painting "Les
Noces de Cana" and with other 16th century Venetian paintings  in a
new room called "La salle des États", designed by architect Lorenzo
Piqueras.

Mona Lisa has undergone a series of tests: microfuorescence X
analysis, Raman microspectrometry, and spectrocolometry. Verdict: Mona
Lisa is in very good health for its age. There is an ancient slit
measuring 11cm that goes from the upper side to Mona Lisa's right
temple. It has not evolved and seems stabilized.

They have found that the pictural coat is so fine as to be almost
unreal, evoquing the preciosity of ancient chinese paintings made from
color juices. The finesse of the coating goes against all rules of
security for an oil painting.

It's the varnish that maintains the painting at the cost of it being
darkened. There was talk of lightening the varnish but this has been
rejected as being too dangerous as the solvent might attack the pigments.

Varnish protects and adds to longevity but at the same time, darkens 
the images

Cheers,
Andre Moreau