Young Woman with Unicorn

In art history, some paintings conceal mysteries straight out of an espionage thriller. A perfect example is Young Woman with Unicorn, which, over past centuries, has survived terrifying “live dog transformations” and a complete “blind-box unboxing.”

Currently glowing in the serene galleries of Rome’s Borghese Gallery, this flawlessly pure portrait is, beneath its pristine surface, actually a “patchwork painting” that was repeatedly painted over and even had its identity forged.

Raphael’s young maiden epitomizes standard Renaissance elegance. She gazes at the viewer with an incredibly stable, almost emotionless expression, cradling a tiny, pocket-sized white unicorn in her lap. Her hands rest elegantly crossed over her knees, and an opulent necklace encrusted with rubies and a massive, perfect teardrop pearl adorns her neck.

But the most bizarre part of this masterpiece lies in its modern X-ray results. Under technological scans, experts were stunned to discover: originally, she wasn’t holding a unicorn at all, but a lapdog! Even more absurdly, in later centuries, some hack of an art restorer decided she wasn’t holy enough, forcibly painting a massive broken wheel over the unicorn and draping her in a heavy cloak—brutally converting her into a Christian martyr (Saint Catherine of Alexandria). It wasn’t until a radical 1959 restoration that the unicorn, buried under centuries of overpaint, finally saw the light of day.

In the folklore of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the unicorn was a fiercely wild, untamable magical beast. However, legend dictated it had one fatal weakness: if a pure, spotless virgin sat in the forest, the unicorn would meekly approach and lay its horn gently on her lap. Thus, a unicorn in contemporary paintings served as the ultimate, uncounterfeitable watermark of absolute purity and chastity.

In this painting, Raphael blatantly and shamelessly plagiarized the exact composition of an iconic masterpiece by another super-genius (Leonardo da Vinci). From the balcony background and the half-length posture to the crossed hands resting on the lap—it’s essentially a 1:1 clone. Can you guess the name of that famous Da Vinci painting?

In the early 16th century, Da Vinci had just debuted the Mona Lisa. Its emphasis on psychological realism and the sheer softness of the “Sfumato” (smoky blending) technique entirely detonated the Florence art scene. The young Raphael, having just arrived in Florence, aggressively absorbed Da Vinci’s techniques like a sponge. This portrait is the ultimate hard evidence of the cutthroat learning and “stealth-copying” taking place among the era’s supreme geniuses.

There has been a centuries-long, heated academic war over the girl’s true identity. Some argue she is Lucrezia Borgia—the notoriously scandalous illegitimate daughter of Pope Alexander VI, plagued by rumors of incest with her father and brother (using the unicorn to aggressively whitewash her vicious reputation). The real historical truth may have long since been buried beneath those thick, relentlessly altered layers of paint.