Mona Lisa Has No Eyebrows

One of the most enigmatic features of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece is the subject's famously bare brow. For centuries, this detail sparked debate among art historians and admirers, with many attributing the look to a high-fashion Renaissance trend of plucking one's eyebrows for a more pronounced forehead. Another popular theory suggested that Leonardo, a notorious perfectionist, had simply left the portrait in a state of perpetual incompletion, never adding the final, delicate details.

The mystery was largely solved in 2007 when French engineer Pascal Cotte analyzed the painting with high-intensity, multi-spectral scanning technology. This non-invasive technique allowed him to see past the layers of varnish and time, revealing what the naked eye could not: a single brushstroke of a hair above the left eye. The scans confirmed that Leonardo had indeed painted both eyebrows and eyelashes. Their disappearance is a result of the painting's 500-year history; centuries of cleaning and restoration efforts have gradually eroded the most delicate layers of glaze. The fine hairs of the brows and lashes were simply too fragile to survive the maintenance, a subtle loss for a painting Leonardo worked on for approximately four years.