More than 80% of Louvre visitors are there specifically to see the Mona Lisa. This week, Tidbits focuses on the portrait of a woman with the mysterious smile captured in the most famous painting in the world.
- It’s believed that Mona Lisa was the wife of an Italian nobleman man and wealthy silk merchant from Florence, Francesco del Giocondo, who commissioned Leonardo da Vinci to paint a portrait of his dark-haired wife Lisa del Giocondo to commemorate the birth of their second son. Art scholars speculate that it was painted between 1503 and 1506, although da Vinci could have been working on it up until 1517.
- The painting was never given to the Giocondo family. After Da Vinci’s death in 1519, it was acquired by France’s King Francis I. It came to the Louvre in 1797, but because the Mona Lisa was beloved by Napoleon Bonaparte, it hung in his bedroom for much of his reign.
- The name Mona (Monna in Italian) is a polite form address similar to “my lady” in English. Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa in oils on a panel of white poplar. It was one of the first portraits to feature a background of an imaginary landscape, that of a vast countryside that gives way to mountains, winding paths, and a far-off bridge.
- The Mona Lisa is small, just 21 x 30 inches. It hangs in the Louvre’s largest room, a climate-controlled area, where it was moved in 1966. There is a pane of bullet-proof glass covering it, barricades to keep visitors from getting too close. It’s carefully guarded by sentinels for its protection. Visitors have just 30 seconds to view the painting before being moved on to accommodate the large number of viewers.
- The painting was stolen from the Louvre in 1911 by Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian museum worker who had been hired to make protective glass cases for several pieces of artwork. Peruggia hid inside a closet until after the Louvre closed, and after hours, he wrapped the masterpiece in his work smock, and walked out of the museum the next morning. The painting’s absence went unnoticed for 26 hours. Peruggia hid the Mona Lisa in a trunk in his apartment for two years before returning to Italy, where it was kept in his Florence residence. The thief believed he had done a service to his country by returning the painting to its homeland, and expected a reward for it. He contacted the owner of an art gallery, where the painting was authenticated and kept for “safekeeping.” The owner contacted the police, and Peruggia was arrested. Because many hailed him as a “patriot,” his sentence was light – just one year and 15 days, of which he served seven months. After over two years of searching by more than 60 detectives, the Mona Lisa was returned to its permanent home in the Louvre.
- The Mona Lisa was damaged twice in the 1950s, once when a fan tried to cut it out of the frame with a razor blade, and again when a rock was thrown at the glass case, dislodging a tiny piece of paint near her left elbow.
• This masterpiece was last assessed for value in 1962, when it was placed at $100 million, which is equivalent to about $1 billion today.
