Another DaVinci Code?

I just came across this news which I dont know how I missed earlier. In July 2005, London's National Gallery's team of experts used infrared reflectography to find two distinct underdrawings beneath the surface of Leonardo da Vinci's 'Virgin of the Rocks'. Though one drawing corresponds with the final version of the painting, another shows a completely different picture of a kneeling figure. Her downcast gaze and pious gestures suggest that Leonardo's initial idea was to depict the Virgin in Adoration of the Christ Child. There is no sign of the baby Jesus, but this could be because Leonardo abandoned this idea before he came to include him.

'The Virgin of the Rocks' was painted for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception in Milan. Leonardo made two versions of the painting: the first (now in the Louvre in Paris) was probably sold in the 1490s to a private client after a financial wrangle with the Confraternity; and a replacement - the painting now hanging in the National Gallery - that was installed in 1508.

So why did Leonardo abandon his first underdrawing to revert to 'The Virgin of the Rocks' as he had already painted it? We will probably never know the answer, but the question will perplex art lovers and historians for many years to come.

The Virgin of the Rocks, 1491-1508
LEONARDO da Vinci, 1452 - 1519
National Gallery, London

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Virgin of the Rocks, 1483-86
LEONARDO da Vinci, 1452 - 1519
Musée du Louvre, Paris