By: Akanksha
Leonardo da Vinci’s famed Mona Lisa now appears to have been hiding a medical condition behind her mysterious smile, with new research suggesting the subject suffered from chronic alopecia, an autoimmune disease.
Italian dermatologist Dr. Luigi Laino, suggested in a paper published in Clinics in Dermatology that the painting shows clear signs of alopecia areata. This is an autoimmune condition whereby the body’s immune system attacks the hair follicles. It can often be brought on by severe physical and hormonal stress.
While art historians have long debated why the woman in the iconic 1503 painting did not have eyebrows or eyelashes — blaming fanatical restoration work or Renaissance beauty trends such as plucking — Dr. Laino saw the painting as a patient file and found four separate symptoms:
Complete loss of eyebrows on both sides
Total absence of eyelashes
A sharp, receding frontal hairline lacking natural baby-hair transition
Smooth, intact skin free of scarring
Some historians have previously cited multispectral imaging revealing that there was once a lone eyebrow hair beneath the surface layer, proving that Leonardo da Vinci had originally painted the eyebrows which have since faded.
However, Laino argues that this is actually a telltale sign of alopecia areata universalis. The presence of just one hair in an otherwise bald area that is bald is a common sign of the condition. Therefore, this supports the diagnosis, meaning the eyebrows were neither plucked nor faded.
Laino also studied the life of Lisa Gherardini, who is widely accepted as the model for the portrait. She was married off as a teenager to a fabric merchant and had six children before the age of 30, losing four.
She lived in an era of constant political unrest, religious wars, and plague.
Any of these stressors alone — combined with the constant hormonal changes of multiple pregnancies — could cause extreme hair loss in someone prone to the condition. To face all of these in one decade would have made maintaining a healthy head of hair extremely difficult.
Also Read: New Treatments Provide More Options for People with Alopecia Areata
Alopecia affects around 6.7 million people in the U.S. alone, including celebrities like Viola Davis, Jada Pinkett Smith, Lili Reinhart, and Dallas Cowboys cheerleader Armani Latimer.
Every year, eight to ten million people visit the Louvre to study Gherardini’s face. Laino believes it is time people know the truth and that the most famous portrait in art history should finally be acknowledged for what it shows: a young lady with alopecia areata.
Reference:
Laino, Luigi. “Alopecia Areata Universalis in Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa: A Systematic Retrospective Iconodiagnosis.” Clinics in Dermatology (2026).
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0738081X2600221X
(Rh/APC)