Spain museum reveals earliest Mona Lisa copy

Spanish curators identified Wednesday what they think is the earliest ever copy of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, painted in the artist's own studio and looking younger and more ravishing than the original, AFP reports.

Madrid's Prado Museum unveiled a restored version of the so-called "Mona Lisa of the Prado", in which the woman the Italian artist painted, with her enigmatic smile, sat previously against a background of black paint.

The restored version, with the black paint removed, shows her backed by a landscape of hills and rivers resembling those of the original masterpiece, which hangs in the Louvre museum in Paris.

In the Prado's painting, unveiled to journalists in the museum's vaults on Wednesday, she appears younger and fresher-faced than the one in Paris, and the landscape of rivers and hills lusher.

The museum said the painting will go on show at the Louvre alongside the original from March 26.