Maybe the only contribution by da Vinci is the charcoal sketch which the article talks about, and the Monna Vanna oil painting we have today is by his student Salai, from the sketch.
Like the difference between comic book pencillers and inkers!
I considered that, but no doubt his student and lover “Salai” (a nickname Da Vinci bestowed on his pupil/companion Gian Giacomo Caprotti do Ornone, which is roughly translated as “Little Devil”) would have been familiar with the painting he copied.
If the original painting did have pillars on the left and right sides — as it doee in Raphael’s contemporary sketch of the psinting — why would the pupil omit them even before they had been trimmed out of the picture, as they are in the now-familiar version?
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It is debatable:
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“The Isleworth Mona Lisa is wider than the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, having columns on either side which also appear in some other versions. The Louvre painting merely has the projecting bases of columns on either side, suggesting that the picture was originally framed by columns but was trimmed. However, experts who examined the Mona Lisa in 2004–2005 stated that the original painting had not been trimmed.[10]
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Authenticity
Raphael’s drawing, based on the Mona Lisa:
Pulitzer argues in his book that Leonardo’s contemporary Raphael made a sketch of this painting, probably from memory, after seeing it in Leonardo’s studio in 1504 (the sketch is reproduced in Pulitzer’s book; the book says that this sketch is at the Louvre). The Raphael sketch includes the two Greek columns that are not found in the Louvre’s Mona Lisa.”