Today, in the Louvre, after being imprisoned in a Swiss Vault for over 40 years, what is believed to be an earlier version of the Mona Lisa was unveiled.

The new Mona Lisa, dubbed the Isleworth Mona Lisa, is believed to be a painting by Leonardo da Vinci done a decade before the original Mona Lisa. A Zurich-based Mona Lisa Foundation claimed that it had compiled evidence that Leonardo indeed painted an earlier version of the Mona Lisa in which the young maiden is flanked by two columns.

The AFP states, “Alessandro Vezzosi, director of the Leonardo da Vinci Museum in Vinci, Italy, and a world-renowned expert on the artist and the Mona Lisa, whetted the appetites of the 100 journalists present for the occasion, describing the painting as ‘an important work of art’.”

However, there are critics as well; Martin Kemp, art historian and author at Oxford University stated…