The Mona Lisa's missing eyebrows were painted
The Mona Lisa originally had eyebrows and eyelashes, which vanished over 500 years due to cleaning and aging, transforming its iconic, eyebrow-less gaze.
Despite popular belief, Leonardo da Vinci did paint eyebrows and eyelashes on the Mona Lisa. High-resolution scans in 2007 revealed they disappeared over centuries due to overcleaning and aging, not because they were never there. Renaissance fashion also favored shaved eyebrows, so their absence looked normal to original viewers. The painting's fame skyrocketed after its 1911 theft from the Louvre, transforming it into the world's most famous artwork. Now valued at over $850 million, it's viewed by six million people annually, who spend an average of just 15 seconds before it.