I do not know... but the Mona Lisa does with juxtaposition. http://library.thinkquest.org/13681/data/link2.htm Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! It's the best I can find, but there was a study done about it once (and a better juxaposition).
Possibly, but could it be attributed to the notion that Leonardo supposedly had something of a wicked sense of humor when it came to such things ? IIRC, it's even rumored that he created the shroud of Turin with his own face as the image of JC as a jab at the Church.
************* M*W: Yes, it does. It's a known fact among art scholars that artists of the day reflected their characters in their own nationality, which makes sense. So, the resemblance has little ethnic contrast. In The Last Supper, for example, Jesus looks Italian, but the apostles don't look Italian, except for Mary M. She does a bit. In his painting of John the Baptist pointing upward with his index finger, that figure looks to be Italian, too. Leonardo was a genius and a jokester. The Last Supper was supposed to be about the Passover meal, but if you look at the details in the painting, it's still daytime, so it's not evening like stated in the bible; the bread on the table has had yeast added, so it is leavened -- another clue that this is not the Passover meal; the Passover meal was supposed to be a solomn occasion -- the four groups of three characters on either side of Jesus were talking and making gestures and heavily interacting -- unlike the prayerful, sober Passover meal of the bible, and no one had a halo in this painting. What an enigma it is!
