Paris, France

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A team of scientists in France and Britain has detected a rare mineral compound within the Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci's iconic painting. 

According to a study recently published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Leonardo da Vinci, a painter, inventor and anatomist, created the Mona Lisa using a technique seen in works a century later. The study, using X-ray diffraction, provides pristine knowledge about the intricacies of the painting from the 1500s, CNN reported.

The findings show that the base layer of the paint in Mona Lisa was a compound called plumbonacrite with lead white pigment and oil.

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According to a study published in 2019, Rembrandt used the same mineral compound for his paintings during the 17th century. However, researchers have not found it in artworks from the Italian Renaissance until the most recent analysis.

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Plumbonacrite is the combination of lead oxides with oil. Artists like Rembrandt used the compound to help the paint dry. However, its presence in the Mona Lisa suggests that Leonardo da Vinci could've been the technique's pioneer.

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"Everything which comes from Leonardo is very interesting because he was an artist, of course, but he was also a chemist, a physicist — he had lots of ideas, and he was an experimenter … attempting to improve the knowledge of his time," said Gilles Wallez, the author of the latest study on Mona Lisa. 

"Each time you discover something in his processes, you discover that he was ahead of his time," he said. 

Like many paintings from the 16th century, Leonardo da Vinci created the Mona Lisa on a wood panel that required a thick base layer. Researchers suggest that the legendary painter might have combined lead oxide powder with linseed oil to create a thick coat for the base layer. However, he might've unknowingly created the rare compound. 

Researchers, nowadays, aren't allowed to take samples from the Mona Lisa, placed at the Louvre in Paris and protected behind glass. Wallez and his team used a micro-sample from 2007 and analysed it using a high-tech machine called a synchrotron. 

"These samples have a very high cultural value," Wallez said. "You can't afford to take big samples on a painting, so a synchrotron is the best way to analyse them," he added.

The study also mentioned that da Vinci's mural, The Last Supper, had the same chemical mixup as the Mona Lisa. 

(With inputs from agencies)

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