Scientists Think They’ve Discovered Why the Mona Lisa Has No Eyebrows
· Vice
Being the most famous face in the world comes with some downsides, like having strangers comment on your eyebrows for 500 years.
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The latest person to weigh in is Italian dermatologist Luigi Laino, who believes the woman in Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa had alopecia areata universalis, an autoimmune condition that can cause hair loss across the entire body. In a published paper, Laino pointed to four details: missing eyebrows, absent eyelashes, an abrupt hairline, and smooth skin without scarring. He argues that the combination points to alopecia more convincingly than the other explanations doctors have proposed over the years.
Laino also looked into the life of Lisa Gherardini, the woman believed to have posed for the painting. She married as a teenager, had six children, and experienced tremendous personal loss while living through plague and political unrest. Stress can play a role in alopecia areata, and Gherardini certainly had her share. Of course, diagnosing someone based on a 500-year-old portrait and a difficult personal history leaves room for disagreement.
A New Study Suggests the Mona Lisa Had a Rare Hair Loss Disorder
And there certainly have been plenty of disagreements. Back in 2004, doctors suggested the Mona Lisa might have had high cholesterol because of what looked like a fatty deposit near her eye. In 2018, cardiologist Mandeep Mehra proposed hypothyroidism, pointing to her thinning hair and yellowish complexion. Another medical paper published in 2020 raised the possibility of frontal fibrosing alopecia. This poor woman has been dead for nearly five centuries, and she’s still collecting diagnoses.
Art researchers have another explanation for the missing eyebrows. In 2007, French engineer Pascal Cotte examined the painting using advanced imaging technology and found evidence of an eyebrow hair. He suggested Leonardo originally painted brows and lashes that disappeared as the paint aged or during restoration. Laino disagrees, arguing that the single surviving hair could actually support his alopecia theory.
There’s also the possibility that her appearance had something to do with Renaissance beauty standards. Women sometimes plucked their eyebrows and hairlines to achieve the high foreheads fashionable at the time. So while modern doctors are debating autoimmune diseases, Lisa Gherardini might simply have been following a beauty trend.
Alopecia areata itself affects roughly 2% of people during their lifetime, although the universalis form that Laino proposes is much rarer. The condition occurs when the immune system attacks hair follicles, and people living with it face an increased risk of anxiety and depression. Losing your hair can be emotionally difficult, especially in a world that has so many opinions about how people should look.
Whether Gherardini had alopecia, another medical condition, or perfectly healthy eyebrows that disappeared from the painting, we’ll probably never know for certain. Five centuries later, strangers are still examining her face and offering unsolicited opinions.
At least she can’t read the comments.
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