And I find it hard to believe that during the months of preparation, nobody else saw the similarities.
It's easy to not see the similarities when you've designed and executed a tableau modelling after another thing entirely. It happens all the time. Think of the countless logos that go through numerous edits and executives and once the public sees it, sometimes they see something entirely different, often an innuendo that was never intended in the first place.
Perhaps Jan van Bijlert, who studied in Rome and would've surely been exposed to the works of DaVinci, who proceeded him by less than 100 years, is to blame. Maybe HE stylized his painting after DaVinci or other countless Renaissance paintings.
But I find it easy to believe that someone set on doing one thing (modelling after the van Bijlert painting) can easily lose sight on how other people on the back end will interpret it. Just because Person A sees something unintended, does not mean that it was intended.
