"Mona Lisa The Mona Lisa (; or La Gioconda , ) is a half-length portrait painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci that has been described as ""the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world"". The ""Mona Lisa"" is also one of the most valuable paintings in the world. It holds the Guinness World Record for the highest known insurance valuation in history at $100 million in 1962, which is worth nearly $800 million in 2017. The painting is thought to be a"
"the subtle modelling of forms, and the atmospheric illusionism were novel qualities that have contributed to the continuing fascination and study of the work. The title of the painting, which is known in English as ""Mona Lisa"", comes from a description by Renaissance art historian Giorgio Vasari, who wrote ""Leonardo undertook to paint, for Francesco del Giocondo, the portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife."" ""Mona"" in Italian is a polite form of address originating as ""ma donna"" – similar to ""Ma’am"", ""Madam"", or ""my lady"" in English. This became ""madonna"", and its contraction ""mona"". The title of the painting, though"
"Mona Lisa (Prado's version) The copy of the ""Mona Lisa"" is a painting of the same subject as Leonardo da Vinci's famous ""Mona Lisa"" (which is held by the Louvre Museum, Paris). The copy painting has been displayed in the Museo del Prado in Madrid (Spain) since 1819, but was considered for decades a worthless copy. However, after its restoration in 2012, the Prado's ""Mona Lisa"" was claimed to be the earliest replica of Leonardo's masterpiece. Although there are dozens of surviving replicas of ""Mona Lisa"" from the 16th and 17th centuries, the ""Prado's Mona Lisa"" is said to be,"
"that it is simply a masterful portrait of a woman. Olson and Meisel also take issue with the idea that Leonardo painted the ""Mona Lisa"" as a self-portrait, and that this idea is based on the fact that points of congruency are found between Leonardo's face and the Mona Lisa's. Olson and Meisel respond that points of congruency can be found among many faces, which is how computer morphing of faces is facilitated. The title of the book is not consistent with naming conventions, because ""Da Vinci"" was not Leonardo's surname. As Tom Chivers of ""The Daily Telegraph"" comments, ""[Leonardo]"
"the possession of the people. Today about six million people visit the painting each year at the Louvre in Paris, where it is part of a French national collection. Lisa del Giocondo Lisa del Giocondo (; née Gherardini ; June 15, 1479 – July 15, 1542) was an Italian noblewoman, member of the Gherardini family of Florence and Tuscany. Her name was given to the ""Mona Lisa"", her portrait commissioned by her husband and painted by Leonardo da Vinci during the Italian Renaissance. Little is known about Lisa's life. Born in Florence and married in her teens to a cloth"
"Agostino Vespucci Agostino Vespucci was an Italian chancellery official, clerk, and assistant to Niccolò Machiavelli, among others. He is most well known for helping to confirm the subject of Leonardo da Vinci's ""Mona Lisa"" as Lisa del Giocondo, but is also the author of a number of surviving letters and manuscripts. The identity of the young woman in Leonardo's ""Mona Lisa"" had been difficult to ascertain due to a lack of decisive contemporary sources of information about the painting. This changed upon the discovery of a comment written by Vespucci in the margin of a 1477 edition of Cicero's "","
"during this period Leonardo had taken a commission from Francesco del Giocondo to paint his wife, ""'."" Here ""Mona"" was not intended as a name, but as an abbreviation of ', the Italian literary form of ""Lady"". Agostino Vespucci Agostino Vespucci was an Italian chancellery official, clerk, and assistant to Niccolò Machiavelli, among others. He is most well known for helping to confirm the subject of Leonardo da Vinci's ""Mona Lisa"" as Lisa del Giocondo, but is also the author of a number of surviving letters and manuscripts. The identity of the young woman in Leonardo's ""Mona Lisa"" had been"
"of betrayal, love, and loss, which unravels the mysteries surrounding Leonardo da Vinci's most famous portrait, ""Mona Lisa"", and its links with the main character Lisa Gherardini, with added plot twists. I, Mona Lisa I, Mona Lisa (UK title Painting Mona Lisa) is a historical novel by Jeanne Kalogridis about Lisa Gherardini, the model for Leonardo da Vinci's painting ""Mona Lisa"". Lisa is portrayed as a young Italian woman who learns about the murder of Giuliano de' Medici, the brother of Lorenzo de' Medici in the Pazzi conspiracy. Guiliano's murder casts a shadow, especially as one of the killers has"
"Lisa del Giocondo Lisa del Giocondo (; née Gherardini ; June 15, 1479 – July 15, 1542) was an Italian noblewoman, member of the Gherardini family of Florence and Tuscany. Her name was given to the ""Mona Lisa"", her portrait commissioned by her husband and painted by Leonardo da Vinci during the Italian Renaissance. Little is known about Lisa's life. Born in Florence and married in her teens to a cloth and silk merchant who later became a local official, she was a mother to five children and led what is thought to have been a comfortable and ordinary middle-class"
"I, Mona Lisa I, Mona Lisa (UK title Painting Mona Lisa) is a historical novel by Jeanne Kalogridis about Lisa Gherardini, the model for Leonardo da Vinci's painting ""Mona Lisa"". Lisa is portrayed as a young Italian woman who learns about the murder of Giuliano de' Medici, the brother of Lorenzo de' Medici in the Pazzi conspiracy. Guiliano's murder casts a shadow, especially as one of the killers has not been found. She later falls in love with Giuliano's namesake, Lorenzo's son Giuliano in the aftermath of Girolamo Savonarola's uprising in the late 15th century. It's an intricately woven tale"
"traditionally spelled ""Mona"" (as used by Vasari), is also commonly spelled in modern Italian as ""Monna Lisa"" ("""" being a vulgarity in some Italian dialects) but this is rare in English. Vasari's account of the ""Mona Lisa"" comes from his biography of Leonardo published in 1550, 31 years after the artist's death. It has long been the best-known source of information on the provenance of the work and identity of the sitter. Leonardo's assistant Salaì, at his death in 1524, owned a portrait which in his personal papers was named ""la Gioconda"", a painting bequeathed to him by Leonardo. That"
"Mona Lisa replicas and reinterpretations Leonardo da Vinci's ""Mona Lisa"" is one of the most recognizable and famous works of art in the world, and also one of the most replicated and reinterpreted. ""Mona Lisa"" replicas were already being painted during Leonardo's lifetime by his own students and contemporaries. Some are claimed to be the work of Leonardo himself, and remain disputed by scholars. Prominent 20th-century artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Salvador Dalí have also produced derivative works, manipulating ""Mona Lisa""'s image to suit their own aesthetic. Replicating Renaissance masterpieces continues to be a way for aspiring artists to"
"Science and inventions of Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) was an Italian polymath, regarded as the epitome of the ""Renaissance Man"", displaying skills in numerous diverse areas of study. Whilst most famous for his paintings such as the ""Mona Lisa"" and the ""Last Supper"", Leonardo is also renowned in the fields of civil engineering, chemistry, geology, geometry, hydrodynamics, mathematics, mechanical engineering, optics, physics, pyrotechnics, and zoology. While the full extent of his scientific studies has only become recognized in the last 150 years, he was, during his lifetime, employed for his engineering and skill of invention. Many of"
"confirmed its attribution to Leonardo da Vinci. In 2011, the Prado museum in Madrid, Spain, announced discovery of what may be the earliest known replica. Miguel Falomir, heading the Department of Italian Renaissance Painting at the time of the discovery, stated the Prado ""had no idea of (the painting's) significance"" until a recent restoration. Recovered from the Prado's vaults, the replica – which El Mundo newspaper dubbed """"Mona Lisa""'s twin"" (""above, far right"") – was reportedly painted simultaneously alongside Leonardo as he painted his own ""Mona Lisa""; in the same studio, by a ""key"" student. It was painted on walnut."
"Isleworth Mona Lisa The Isleworth Mona Lisa is an oil-on-canvas painting of the same subject as Leonardo da Vinci's ""Mona Lisa"". In 2015 and 2016, peer-reviewed academic publications concerning it confirmed its attribution to Leonardo da Vinci. In 1913 English connoisseur Hugh Blaker spotted and acquired the painting which had been hanging for over a century in a manor house in Somerset, having been bought in Italy as an original Leonardo. In a monograph published shortly thereafter, Blaker's stepfather, John R Eyre, proposed that two versions of the Mona Lisa had been worked on by Leonardo; the ""Isleworth"" picture (named"
"YouTube. A 2014 ""New Yorker"" magazine cartoon parodies the supposed enigma of the ""Mona Lisa"" smile in an animation showing progressively maniacal smiles. A version of ""Mona Lisa"" known as ""Mujer de mano de Leonardo Abince"" (""Woman by Leonardo da Vinci's hand"") held in Madrid's Museo del Prado was for centuries considered to be a work by Leonardo. However, since its restoration in 2012 it is considered to have been executed by one of Leonardo's pupils in his studio at the same time as ""Mona Lisa"" was being painted. Their conclusion, based on analysis obtained after the picture underwent extensive"
"The Second Mrs. Giaconda The Second Mrs. Giaconda, later The Second Mrs. Gioconda, is a historical novel for children by E. L. Konigsburg. Set primarily in Milan, Italy, it features Leonardo da Vinci, his servant Salai, and duchess Beatrice d'Este. Through the experiences of Salai narrated in third person, it explores the background of da Vinci's ""Mona Lisa"". The book was published by Atheneum in 1975, manufactured by Halliday Lithograph Corporation with ten black-and-white museum plates of da Vinci paintings and drawings, of which several figure in the story. A prologue opens by asking, ""Why did Leonardo da Vinci choose"
"T-shirts, her likeness has also been re-imagined using coffee, toast, seaweed, Rubik's Cubes, and computer chips, to name only a few. Now over five-hundred years since her creation, the perpetuation of ""Mona Lisa""'s influence is reinforced with every reinterpretation. At the start of the 16th century, Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned by Florentine nobleman Francesco del Giocondo to paint a portrait of his wife, Lisa. The painting is believed to have been undertaken between 1503 and 1506. Leonardo's portrait of ""Mona Lisa"" (""Mona"" or ""Monna"" being the Italian honorific for ""Madame"") has been on display as part of the permanent"
"Isabela Gualanda, Caterina Sforza—even Salaì and Leonardo himself—are all among the list of posited models portrayed in the painting. The consensus of art historians in the 21st century maintains the long-held traditional opinion, that the painting depicts Lisa del Giocondo. Leonardo da Vinci is thought by some to have begun painting the ""Mona Lisa"" in 1503 or 1504 in Florence, Italy. Although the Louvre states that it was ""doubtless painted between 1503 and 1506"", the art historian Martin Kemp says there are some difficulties in confirming the actual dates with certainty. In addition, many Leonardo experts, such as Carlo Pedretti"
"flipped left side of a red chalk self-portrait of Leonardo. Superimposed lines drawn on the image showing the close alignments of the bottom of the eye, eyebrow, nose and chin prompted her to argue that the Mona Lisa is in part a cryptic self-portrait of the artist. In further experiments along these lines, she removed the gray tones in Leonardo da Vinci's self-portrait and superimposed the ""Mona Lisa"" eye over it. Not everyone is convinced by her argument for the identity of Leonardo da Vinci and the ""Mona Lisa""; one common counter-argument is that the similarities are due to both"
"represented in the original ""Mona Lisa"". Joos van Cleve, a Flemish artist active in the years following ""Mona Lisa""'s creation, also painted a nude titled ""Mona Vanna"". Though the figure portrayed in van Cleve's painting bears no resemblance to Leonardo's ""Mona Lisa"", the artist was known to mimic themes and techniques of Leonardo da Vinci, in this case the positioning of the figure and the delicate brushwork reminiscent of Leonardo's sfumato. The artwork, dating to the mid-16th century, is in the collection of the National Gallery, Prague. By the 20th century, ""Mona Lisa"" had already been a victim of satirical"
"perfect their painting techniques and prove their skills. Contemporary ""Mona Lisa"" replicas are often created in conjunction with events or exhibitions related to Leonardo da Vinci, for publicity. Her portrait, considered public domain and therefore outside of copyright protection, has also been exploited to make political statements. Known even to people with no art background, the mere use of ""Mona Lisa""'s name – immortalized in Academy Award-winning lyrics sung by Nat King Cole (Best Original Song, 1950) – is capable of stirring public interest and intrigue. Aside from countless print-reproductions of Leonardo's original ""Mona Lisa"" on postcards, coffee mugs and"
"Piero and his two brothers, Giuliano being one of them, to flee. This information added tension of Napoli's story and Giuliano's disappearance gave cause to her half-smile. The ""Mona Lisa"" ""The Smile"" refers to the woman depicted in Leonardo da Vinci's painting. Several questions surround the mysterious painting, focusing most pointedly at the debate over who the true muse was or whether she was merely an invention of da Vinci's imagination. Napoli took the most proposed muse, Lisa Gherardini and her known husband, Francesco del Giocondo, and created a story for them based on life in Florence in the late"
"years. The pattern on ""Mona Lisa's"" dark green dress, art critic Maike Vogt-Lüerssen believes, indicates that she was a member of the house of Sforza. Her theory is that the ""Mona Lisa"" was the first official portrait of the new Duchess of Milan, which requires that it was painted in spring or summer 1489 (and not 1503). In 2004, historian Giuseppe Pallanti published ""Monna Lisa, Mulier Ingenua"" (published in English as ""Mona Lisa Revealed: The True Identity of Leonardo's Model""). The book gathered archival evidence in support of the traditional identification of the model as Lisa. According to Pallanti, the"
"to paint, for Francesco del Giocondo, the portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife"" (). The portrait's Italian name ""La Gioconda"" is the feminine form of her married name. In French it is known by the variant ""La Joconde"". Though derived from Lisa's married name there is the added significance that the name derives from the word for ""happy"" (in English, ""jocund"") or ""the happy one"". Speculation assigned Lisa's name to at least four different paintings and her identity to at least ten different people. By the end of the 20th century, the painting was a global icon that had been"
"were part of a 2009 exhibition of artwork inspired by ""Mona Lisa"". Displayed at the Museo Ideale in Leonardo's hometown of Vinci, near Florence, some believe one of the paintings – dating from Leonardo's time – to be the work of Leonardo himself, and it has at times been credited to him. Other experts theorize the painting, one of at least six known to exist, may be just another copy painted by ""followers"" of Leonardo. Scholarly dispute persists as to artist, subject and origin. The nude in question, discovered behind a wall in a private library, reportedly belonged to an"
"The replica has been part of the Prado's collection since the museum's founding in 1819. After restoration, the Prado's ""Mona Lisa"" revealed details covered by previous restorations and layers of varnish. Furnishings and fabrics were enhanced, as well as landscape and facial features. It is anticipated that such revelations may offer further insight into Leonardo's original. Experts at the Louvre reportedly supported the Prado museum's findings. The Prado replica was subsequently transported to the Louvre in 2012 to be displayed next to ""Mona Lisa"" as part of a temporary exhibition. Two nude paintings bearing similarities to Leonardo da Vinci's original"
"Cultural references to Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian Renaissance painter and polymath who achieved legendary fame and iconic status within his own lifetime. His renown primarily rests upon his brilliant achievements as a painter, the ""Mona Lisa"" and the ""Last Supper"", being two of the most famous artworks ever created, but also upon his diverse skills as a scientist and inventor. He became so highly valued during his lifetime that the King of France bore him home like a trophy of war, supported him in his old age and,"
"mystery that surrounds the identity of the Mona Lisa that gave rise to the creation of Napoli's novel. The Smile (book) The Smile (2008) is one of Donna Jo Napoli's young adult novels. With ""spot-on flair for infusing history with coolness Napoli details a slice of the life of Monna Elisabetta, better known as Mona Lisa. While the story is fictional, some important historical figures enter the plot: Leonardo da Vinci and members of the famous Medici family are among the few. Set in Renaissance Florence, the story follows Elisabetta as she journeys to reach the moment of da Vinci's"
"collection at Paris' Louvre museum since 1797. It is also known as ""La Joconde"" in French and ""La Gioconda"" in Italian, and has been known by other names in the past. There is a new study setting the beginning of the Mona Lisa to an earlier date that thought before, pre-1478, contrary to Vasari's narrative. Replicas of ""Mona Lisa"" date back to the 16th century, including sculptures and etchings inspired by the painting. But even by the start of the 20th century, historian Donald Sassoon has stated, ""Mona Lisa"" was still ""just a well-respected painting by a famous old master,"
"copies, and concluded that both ""Mona Lisa"" and the ""Isleworth Mona Lisa"" were original works by Leonardo. In 2016, in another academic publication, Professors Asmus, Parfenov and Elford published the results of scientific examinations that established to their satisfaction that the same artist painted the face of both the ""Mona Lisa"" and the ""Isleworth Mona Lisa"". In 2017, Gérard Boudin de l'Arche published a comprehensive historical account and stated that Leonardo painted the ""Isleworth Mona Lisa"" before the Louvre ""Mona Lisa"". Isleworth Mona Lisa The Isleworth Mona Lisa is an oil-on-canvas painting of the same subject as Leonardo da Vinci's"
"employed were unorthodox for his time. Leonardo was born out of wedlock to notary Piero da Vinci and a peasant woman named Caterina in Vinci in the region of Florence, and he was educated in the studio of Florentine painter Andrea del Verrocchio. Much of his earlier working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan. He later worked in Rome, Bologna, and Venice, and he spent his last years in France at the home awarded to him by Francis I of France. Leonardo is renowned primarily as a painter. The ""Mona Lisa"" is the most"
"clones of Leonardo's great portrait"" while Valfierno made arrangements to steal the real painting. In the early hours of 21 August 1911, Louvre employee Vincenzo Peruggia and two accomplices carried the ""Mona Lisa"" out of the museum covered in a painter's smock. Decker asserts that six Chaudron copies had already been sent to the United States ahead of the theft and while the stolen original remained in France, Valfierno followed his fakes and sold each for up to 300,000. The original remained hidden for two years until Peruggia, presenting himself as Leonardo Vincenzo, tried to sell it in Florence, Italy."