From her enigmatic smile to those follow-you-round-the-room eyes, the Mona Lisa’s features are arguably the most analysed of any painting in history.
But now scientists say they’ve discovered previously unseen clues that she was suffering from incurable hair loss.
Examinations of Leonardo da Vinci’s 16th-century portrait of Lisa Gherardini, 24, the wife of a Florentine silk merchant, revealed she was in the early stages of alopecia areata – the same condition that robbed TV star Gail Porter of her locks in her thirties.
It can cause rapid and total hair loss when the immune system attacks hair follicles in the scalp.
It affects an estimated
To provide well-rounded coverage and a breadth of insight across various events, we rely on contributions from several staff writers, each bringing their own area of expertise to our publication.
