Is there an EARLIER version of the MONA LISA?!

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Buy Amara. This is a weekly news show where we'll discuss some of the weird, strange, and downright odd things that have happened in the art and history fields.

I'm your host and personal curator, Amara Andrew.

This week, we're talking about a couple stiffed $200,000 at a Wyeth paint- Wyeth painting auction, Jesus Christ, at a Wyeth painting auction. Is there an earlier version of the Mona Lisa? And a 27,000-year-old pyramid found?

We will talk all about that on this episode of Buy Amara. So, let's just get straight to it. My fucking brain!

I know I've basically said it in like every single episode lately, but my brain is just literally everywhere.

We are actually at the time of this Okay. See? Everywhere.

It's omnipresent. So, we literally just got back from Miami. We Okay, we've had a lot of travel lately,

So it's been really great because I love travel, and I really hate to just be home, honestly. Like I go crazy, I get stir crazy, and especially because I do editing. So, I would just like video editing, so I literally am just by myself laughing to myself all the time.

So, I really like to have my water. I really like to have people around and like talk to people and stuff like that, but just it's a very solitary sort of pursuit. So, anyway, blah, blah, blah.

We've had so much travel. We literally just got back from Miami

A couple days ago. We went there right after Thanksgiving just to like get in the sun because it's really gray and gloomy here in Chicago. I used to really enjoy the gray, gloomy, but now I just can't fucking stand it.

I'm very cold, and I really wanted to be in the sun and just like wasn't feeling super great. So, we went to Miami,

Really great. Then we just got back a couple days ago, and we are now, as this comes out, we are in Pennsylvania for a client of mine. So, my business is called MAVEN, whatismaven.com,

And basically what I do is I do social media videography, specifically for real estate professionals. So, it's just like a full service thing. Like I literally come to you, you don't have to prep anything, and like we just bing, bing, boom.

So, something we've just recently started doing,

Something else we've recently started doing, because we started doing these VIP experiences where we have like a private car with a driver and then a studio space and everything, so then we'd like shuttle people back and forth from real estate conferences to our studio space, record for an hour, and then go back.

So, from that, we have had some people who are just like, "Hey, by the way, can you like fly to me?" Which we were like, "Sure, why not?" So, because like both Geoff and I, my boyfriend, we really love traveling and just like being out and like doing different things and like working with really cool people. So, then it was like, "Oh, yeah, like why not?"

So, we're going to Pennsylvania. I'm super excited for many different reasons. One, because the person that we're filming with is beyond adorable.

She is like one of the sweetest people I think I've ever met, and she's just like we get along so well. It's one of those like bonds where it's just like, yeah, like I feel like we like get each other.

I don't know, I might just be fucking making it up in my head, which that's fine, just let me be delusional. But she's absolutely lovely, and I'm super stoked. We're going to West Chester, Pennsylvania, which if you know anything about West Chester, it is where Bam Margera is from.

I grew up being a huge Bam fan, which now, I don't I don't know, everything just changes as time goes on, but I was a huge Viva La Bam fan, Jackass, CKY crew, like the whole shebang.

Never made it to West Chester, so I'm now going to go, and I'm very excited for that. I really want to see Castle Bam, I want to see like basically everything you would see in Viva La Bam or Bam's Unholy Union, like all the different spots and stuff like that. So, I'm super stoked.

I'm a huge, huge, huge fan. So, anyway,

That will be interesting. Then literally So, when this comes out, I will be there, so we'll see if I actually get to go to these different places, because I'm mostly just focused on recording with my client. So, this will be really fun.

It's a very novel thing in many different respects, so

I'm excited, but I'm also a little frazzled because I want to make sure I have all my gear and blah, blah, blah, so! And then literally 48 to 72 hours after we get back from that, we are going to Ohio to film with another client of mine,

And she is absolutely lovely also. I'm very excited. She and I she gives like the best hair tips, which I think is why my hair has been improving.

I don't know, let me know in the comments. So, I'm very excited for that, too, but it's just like a lot of moving parts and trying to book travel and then trying to get all my

Stuff ready for each of them. So, sorry I'm like a little frazzled. I'll probably be talking really fucking quickly throughout this episode, and I'm going to try to bing, bing, boom this.

Also, just that brings me to my next talking point, which

Things are drastically picking up in my business, so in January we're also traveling to two additional clients, so and this is just ongoing. Like it'll be every three months I'm recording with these clients, so

The podcast will still be here. It may be on hold a little bit, or it might just be on the road. Audio, video quality might not be as amazing.

Audio quality, I'll still have my camera and everything, but

Audio quality might be a little bit different, but, you know, if you enjoy the show, then that should be fine. So, anyway, and I'm also going to try to do less edits, so this is just going to be fucking fast and loose.

Hopefully, the show is still great, but if not, then we might just scrap it, but anywho, I think that's basically it. Oh! We decorated for Christmas.

If you're listening to this, you can see it on the video version. We have a giant Christmas tree over here, and we just have Christmas shit galore. We have a little Krampus over there.

It is so cute. It's like this little We got it at the Christkindlmarket here in Chicago, which I fucking love. If you come to Chicago, you need to go.

Just don't go on the weekends, and you'll have a good time, because it is nuts on the weekends. But it's this like cute little yarn Krampus doll, and it's just like

I don't know, I really like all the like handmade-looking stuff just because it feels more authentic. So, yeah, anywho, that is basically it. So, I think let's just get into the show.

So, currently, the oldest known pyramid in the world was the Step Pyramid of Djoser, and that's located in Egypt, obviously. And that was about dated to about like 4700 years old.

Jesus. Yeah, going all the way through is already psyching myself out, so we'll see how this goes. But the Step Pyramid of Djoser is 4700 years old, which is really fucking old.

It's I think like 2000 years older than the Great Pyramids of Giza, so just to give you some context.

And it's like a super just blocky kind of thing. There're so many documentaries on it, too, so you can go watch it. It's a really fascinating story, actually.

But anyway, I digress. So, that currently right now is known as the oldest pyramid in the world.

Well, a new study now claims that a site in Indonesia holds the oldest pyramid, dating up to 27,000 years ago.

So, 4700 for Djoser, 27,000 for this pyramid in Indonesia. And I'm going to give you a little bit more context. So, this study was published in Archaeological Prospection, and it claims that the Gunung Padang site in West Java, Indonesia, is significantly older than any other pyramid found thus far.

The site includes a raised earth site, which means that there actually might be caverns and chambers that are below the surface. And if there are, this would not make it This would make it not only the oldest known pyramid by thousands of years, but it would also be the oldest known

Use of stone masonry ever uncovered. I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, totally want to learn, but I think for right now, one of the oldest examples of stone masonry that was used in an ancient site is Göbekli Tepe in modern day Turkey. That dates to about 11,500 years old.

So,

This pyramid would literally be almost three times older than Göbekli Tepe, which is wild, because this to me is very old. Also look up Göbekli Tepe if you have no idea what I'm talking about. It's really cool, and there're

So many different hypotheses for what actually the use of it was and everything, but there are a lot of really cool like petroglyphs and stuff like that. So, I don't know, check it out. It's really fascinating.

So,

Also one of the oldest permanent human settlement sites that's ever been found is 25,000 years old, and it's the Dolní Věstonice in modern day Czech Republic. So, this pyramid would suggest that there was also

Older human settlement than this. Like this finding, if it is accurate, which there are a lot of naysayers, so we'll talk about that in a second, but if this actually is accurate, this would be This would uproot

Many different things throughout the like paleolithic history. So, it would be wild, just to put it mildly.

So, how did the authors get to this conclusion? So, like the researchers in the study, what happened, how did they do it, blah, blah, blah. They used seismic tomography to uncover a series of hidden cavities and chambers below the surface of the earth,

And this showed the presence of multilayer constructions. There appear to be four layers of construction that include rooms through differing phases of build. The first layer, which would be the oldest layer, is dated to about 27,000 to 16,000 years ago, and it

The dating of it was done by radiocarbon, or sorry, by carbon dating, the soil that was drilled from the site, which, I know, there are lots of issues with carbon dating. Spare me, I know.

The researchers also believe that they were able to see meticulously sculpted stonework and that the rocks were arranged in a planned way using tomography. Quote, "These findings offer valuable insights into the construction history of Gunung Padang," end quote, wrote the authors.

And like I said, not everybody believes this, which it is It's good to have skepticism when you're looking at things like this, just because, you know, some people be like, "Oh, yeah, this is the oldest," and there are very different factors. So, the journal that actually published these findings has launched an investigation into the study, which I find really interesting.

I don't I personally, I don't know if that's

Common. I've never really heard of a journal doing that. Typically, you have your article peer review peer-reviewed by at least a few different people, so that's really interesting.

There was also another scholar, Flint Dibble from Cardiff University, who stated in the publication Nature, so a separate publication, quote, "I'm surprised the paper was published as is," end quote.

He clarified that his skepticism, though, was mostly related to the conclusions that were drawn by the authors, so that this would be an early site of settlement, or that it would actually be this old of a pyramid, versus the data that they got from Gunung Padang. So,

The main question currently surrounding this study, just to kind of wrap this story up, is whether the tomography scans actually show the work of human or hominin hands, or if the ground could have shifted over thousands of years, which would form layers that left voids in the soil. The Dibble guy that I talked about before claims that the natural move- movement and weathering of rocks could actually sculpt the stone and roll it down the hills and things like that.

So, that's kind of what he is hypothesizing

This is, instead of actually being the site of human, Jesus, I keep almost knocking over my water, versus being the site of having human

Touch. I can't think of words right now. Oh, my god.

And yet another scholar named Billy Farley Billy Farley, maybe related to Chris Farley, I have no idea, he's at the Southern Connecticut State University, he stated that there's no evidence that an advanced civilization existed at that site during the last ice age, which I think is also what the Dibble guy is getting at.

And while soil samples may well be from 27,000 years ago, there aren't the telltale signs of human activity. So, like normally you'd find like charcoal or something like that, or even bone fragments. That would suggest like, oh, people's actually lived here and stayed here for a bit.

So,

That's also what's making people be a little bit more skeptical about this story, versus having it be, you know, "This was made by humans." They're kind of saying, "No, I think this was just natural erosion," which does happen. I mean, the fucking Grand Canyon is natural erosion.

So, anyway, this is an ongoing story. It's very interesting. If this actually is true, like I said, it will rewrite many different facets of ancient history.

So, I am 100% hope- hope- I shouldn't guarantee, but I really hope I will be able to have updates for you on this story. So, on to our next.

A couple that found an original N.C. Wyeth painting has been stiffed $200,000.

This Oh, god. I've talked about stories like this before where people go to thrift shops or like the Goodwill, the Goodwill, the Taco Bell, the Goodwill, and they find these amazing things. Like someone found an ancient Roman bust that ended up there.

A couple people have found famous paintings and things like that. That is like my dream. I don't hang out at thrift shops enough, but I think I might need to.

So, anyway,

In 2017, a woman in Northamptonshire A woman in New Hampshire, rather, unwittingly purchased an original illustration by N.C. Wyeth at a thrift shop for $4.

She allegedly was searching for antique frames when she found this dusty illustration that was nestled between a bunch of old paintings. So, it's like it is a painting, but it's clarified as an illustration specifically, because Wyeth was known as being an illustrator.

And it depicts a scene from Ramona, which we'll talk about what the fuck that is in more in a second. So, the woman that bought this, I forget her name now. I don't think I wrote it down.

But she poked around online to see if she could find anything about this artwork, because she noticed that, you know, there are a few different features of it that would make you stop and pause. There's a label on the back of it, actually. I forget what it says, but there's like a little label on the back of it, and the way that it's framed.

Like you can tell that this would be a painting, if that makes any sense. Like you would kind of take pause.

So, it makes sense that she would want to look into it a little bit more, especially if she was looking for old frames, then she might have a keen eye for art. So, she couldn't find anything online. A few years later, I guess, she posted photos of it in a Facebook group called "Things Found in Walls and Other Hidden Findings," which I really enjoy.

I might need to join that group.

And members in the group told her to contact the Brandywine Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, where Wyeth lived and worked. So, the conservator there, Lauren Lewis, drove to New Hampshire to take a look at the artwork and was able to confirm that she was, quote, "99% certain that it was authentic," end quote.

The artwork did have a few scratches and grime. Obviously, that makes sense because, you know, it's just been out and about, allegedly. So, it makes sense.

So, the person who had purchased the illustration, I forget her name, but she then brought it to Bonhams Skinner,

Which is an auction house, where it was further assessed by Kathleen Leland, who is a specialist in American and European art. Leland did notice multiple clues pointing to the illustration's authorship, including the flat direct composition and the utilitarian frame, which are signature telltale signs of a Wyeth painting, or illustration.

What really sold Leland, though,

Was the partial label on the reverse side. Wyeth used a particular type of artist board, Weber Renaissance Panels, distinctive for their red backs and elaborate labels, which you can clearly see. I have an image up here for you, but go Google it if you're curious, if you're listening to this.

And this was the case for this painting, so that gave it away. You can very clearly tell that it is very much his style. If you look at just the positioning of the characters or the figures, rather, and just like the just everything about it, like you can very clearly tell.

So, while provenance for this illustration is a little bit murky, we do know that Wyeth created this frontispiece for a 1939 edition of Helen Hunt Jackson's 1884 novel Ramona, which I think he was actually born in 1882, so that's really funny. He was just two years after he was born. So, like I said, the provenance isn't really known, which the provenance just means like the history of the piece, so like how did it get from here to here and then to here and then end up in a thrift shop?

Well, we don't really know. Obviously, the record is not attached to this, so that's like that is a huge problem in the art field, archival, all history. It's a pain in the ass, but kind of fun to do the research.

So, it's believed that it was likely gifted by Wyeth to an editor or somebody at Jackson's estate.

The owners of the illustration then decided to put the work up for auction through Bonhams Skinner, once it was like, "Hey, this actually is a Wyeth illustration." And they put it in the American Art Sale on September 19th. It sold for $191,000. That's fucking sweet, especially when you pay $4.

Being able to have that much of a return on your investment is crazy. So, the story, though, does take a little bit of a sad turn. I'm I'm not laughing.

I'm just Nobody died, everything's fine. It's just it sucks. So, the buyer of the piece at the auction had 35 days to pay after the hammer fell, but

By mid-October, the Donahues, who were the people that bought the piece, that's their name, Donahue, they still hadn't received their money, and eventually Bonhams Skinner informed them that the purchaser had refused to pay. That fucking blows. That's also why you should never spend your money before you make it, and even then, put it in something that will make you more money,

Because that is wild. So, the artwork is now back in the hands of the Donahues after what they've described as, quote, "the biggest disappointment ever," which I can only fucking imagine how upset I would be. Granted, it's not like you really lost anything, like you did, but you didn't.

You lost the promise of getting more money for it. And I'm sure it'll go back on auction like any time in the near future, whenever they have another American art sale.

This does happen, unfortunately, at auctions. I don't know how frequently it does, but I've definitely heard of stories where, you know, the buyer Because like for auctions, you do have to verify that you have enough money to be able to pay for certain things.

It depends auction house to auction house, I think. I'm not 100% sure. I've never worked in that capacity, so I literally have no fucking idea.

But some people do overextend themselves and they're like, "Oh, yeah, I'll be able to afford it." And then it's like, "Oh, I have $5 in my bank account." So, they couldn't have made a $1 profit.

So, it does happen from time to time. So, like I think either end can actually cancel the transaction, but I'm not 100% sure. And you have this time to be able to like think it over and everything, get all your funds in order.

So, I don't know. It does suck that you're able to do that, but I understand why they do that. So, hopefully, I'll have another update for this for you in the future if they can sell it, which would be really cool, but, I don't know, we'll see.

On to the next story.

An earlier version of the Mona Lisa may have now been verified. So, this isn't landmark news. People have known about this version of the Mona Lisa for I think decades now, at least.

It's

It's known. It's known in the art history field. It is extremely fucking contentious with da Vinci experts, scholars, and armchair art historians alike.

So, today we're very much going to be talking a lot about formal analysis, which formal analysis is just looking at the physical characteristics of something, and that's basically what is being used primarily to identify Well, okay, I'm just fucking blabbing.

So, today we are talking about the early Mona Lisa. The Isleworth Mona Lisa, as she's called She's called that because of the purchaser Hugh Blaker, who purchased it for his studio in Isleworth, London.

So, there you go, mystery solved. This is a 16th century portrait of Lisa del Giocondo, the same person in the Mona Lisa at the Louvre. Same exact person that has been stated throughout history.

If you look at it, it's like very clearly the same person. However, there are a few different differences, different differences. There are a few differences that we'll talk about why it's being said that this is actually the early version of the Mona Lisa.

So, there are like two, maybe three fields of thought here.

Some people are saying that this is the early version of the Mona Lisa. Some people are saying that this is a copy of the Mona Lisa by somebody else. And people who just don't give a shit.

I guess there are only two camps, but you can do whatever. So, this debate may have been put to rest currently.

The Mona Lisa Foundation in Zurich, Switzerland examined evidence, and with input from and research conducted by scholars in multiple academic and professional disciplines,

They've now come to the conclusion that the Isleworth painting actually predates the one at the Louvre, and for multiple different reasons, which is what we're going to talk about. First, though, I want to do a little formal analysis though of our own. And if you're listening to this, just Google "early Mona Lisa," and you'll find it.

Did I say listening or watching? I think I meant listening, if I didn't say that.

So, the Isleworth one, it like it literally is the same fucking painting almost. Like the background is very different, as you can tell. She looks very similar.

Like the way that the eyes are painted, the same little smile, the dress, the scholars even stated that a lot of the stitching on the dress was exactly the same and like different knots,

Things like that. The way that her hands are positioned with right over left, her right hand gripping her left wrist, and just like the overall feeling and vibe of it is very similar. Like I said, background's totally different.

There are columns and shit like that. But one of the main differences besides the background is that this Lisa looks way younger than the one at the Louvre.

I mean I over-dramatize that, but she looks extreme extremely, Jesus. I'm just going fucking ballistic. But she looks significantly younger than the Mona Lisa painting at the Louvre.

There may be more evidence to support that. So, the one at the Louvre is dated anywhere between 1503 and 1517, I believe, so like it would have been finished by 1517. 14 years is a really fucking long time to finish a portrait of somebody.

There is a letter, a handwritten note that was discovered in 2005, and it's known as the Heidelberg document. This note dates from 1503, and it was written by Agostino Vespucci to Niccolò Machiavelli, who was close friends with da Vinci.

In the letter, Vespucci writes, quote, "In this way Leonardo da Vinci makes it in all his paintings. For example, the head of Lisa del Giocondo," which "head" just means "portrait" at the time. "We will see what he is going to do with regard to the Hall of the Great Council, about which he has just agreed with the gonfaloniere," I couldn't read that quickly, end quote.

So, when this letter was discovered in 2005, this caused a huge fucking uproar, and that was also why this painting came back into question, because it had been kind of like hemmed and hawed and blah, blah, blah. So, in 2005, after this letter was rediscovered, the Louvre issued this statement, quote,

"Leonardo da Vinci was painting in 1503 the portrait of a Florentine lady by the name of Lisa del Giocondo. About what we are known About that we are now certain. Unfortunately, we cannot be absolutely certain that this portrait of Lisa is the painting at the Louvre," end quote.

That's very interesting. It's very telling, too, that the Louvre said that. So, like I said, the Louvre one is slated as having been finished around 1517, again.

All these different timings are sort of speculative. I mean, you have

If you know the birth and death date of somebody, then you have a good approximation, but everything's just very fuzzy because of recordkeeping and things like that, so it's not 100% certain, like definitely by 1517, or maybe it is, I don't know. I'm not a Mona Lisa scholar.

So, in addition to this letter, the Mona Lisa Foundation also cites a variety of scientific and physical examinations into the composition of the Isleworth painting over the decades. One of the main things that they were including is craquelure, which is when you can tell that the surface of the painting cracks, and it should throughout time.

Like that's what it's supposed to do.

Craquelure is primary craquelure is primarily used in reference to paintings on canvas, just because, you know, the canvas moves with time and when you're moving things around and shoving it under your bed and whatever, don't do that to your paintings. But, you know, you're moving the canvas, because it's a pliable sort of thing.

This also applies to wood panels, which is what the Mona Lisa is painted on, and it's what the Isleworth is also painted on. So, it still happens, so they were actually able to verify that is a sign of aging.

And according to these researchers, there is a, quote, "remarkably well-preserved state of the untouched natural craquelure on the surface of the earlier Mona Lisa, which further helps to prove that this may have been around the correct time period." And yet another researcher in 2015 stated in reference to the authenticity of this earlier Mona Lisa that, quote,

"If we analyze the pigments, all the pigments are okay. So, the carbon dating is okay, the varnish is okay, the binder is okay, so technically everything is okay," end quote. Sounds like they really didn't want to commit to it, but that they were just like, "Yep, I think this is this is good."

So, this may be an earlier version, which if you think about it then, 14 years, like you do change a lot. I mean, what, I'm 30 now. So, yeah, I look a little different than from when I was 16, like very different.

So, it would make sense then. Also, especially because this was probably painted when she was younger, the first one, like very much younger,

Cuz life and things like that. So, it would just be very interesting then having these two different portraits. It'd actually be kind of cute, too, if you want to have like two different portraits of you, maybe it was like two different life milestones or whatever.

I'm just totally spitballing and hypothesizing. I have no fucking idea. Some people though, obviously, are very skeptical that this is actually the earlier Mona Lisa.

So, Oxford Professor Martin Kemp, who assisted with the authentication of the controversial Salvator Mundi painting, that is a whole fucking other thing, which you can look it up. The auction was a shit- like everything was a shit show around that painting. But this person is very skeptical that this is the earlier Mona Lisa.

He believes that this is a copy of the original painting, and you can see that the artist of the work, quote, "failed to understand significant details and the suggestive subtlety of Leonardo's image," end quote.

So, a lot of people are very skeptical about this, which I don't blame them, especially with It's just like with the pyramids that we talked about earlier, that, you know, it's hard to verify certain things. So, a lot more analysis is going to be done on the early Mona Lisa,

So hopefully I will have updates for you on that also. I want updates on like all these stories, because this is fascinating, which maybe we'll have an answer, maybe we won't, and that's just how life works. Oh, also, the painting is on view now at the Società Promotrice

Società Promotrice delle Belle Arti. My Italian is so fucking rusty. I used to be able to speak it fluently, and now I just suck ass.

So, anyway, this is on display through May 26th, 2024, and that was fucking embarrassing. So,

Anyway, thank you so much for listening, and I hope you have a great rest of your week. I hope you have a good day. I got to get fucking rolling because I have a shit ton to do before we're leaving tomorrow.

So, I got I got a lot to do, I'm a little frazzled, so I'm so sorry if I'm just like everywhere and chaotic, but

That is that. So, anyway, thank you so much, I love you, and I'm Amara Andrew, never stop creating.

Oh, my god, I have to pack.