Where is the Mona Lisa painting located today?
Mona Lisa replicas and reinterpretations
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 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 uncle of Napoleon Bonaparte, who owned another of Leonardo's paintings.
Facial features bear only vague resemblance, but landscape, compositional and technical details correspond to those of the "Mona Lisa" known worldwide today.
Mona Lisa
Before that discovery, scholars had developed several alternative views as to the subject of the painting. Some argued that Lisa del Giocondo was the subject of a different portrait, identifying at least four other paintings as the "Mona Lisa" referred to by Vasari.
Several other women have been proposed as the subject of the painting.
Isabella of Aragon, Cecilia Gallerani, Costanza d'Avalos, Duchess of Francavilla, Isabella d'Este, Pacifica Brandano or Brandino, 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.
Nabilla Benattia
In June 2018, conceptual artist Andy Picci unveiled a new body of work dedicated to Benattia. The exhibition at Joseph Saint Martin gallery consisted of a series of paintings by classic masters – including the Mona Lisa – on to which Picci has photoshopped Benattia's features.
Montauban
During World War II, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa was briefly hidden in a secret vault behind a wine cellar at Montauban.
Mona Lisa replicas and reinterpretations
Painting "knock-offs" of "Mona Lisa" and other Western masterpieces has become a cottage industry of sorts.
Struggling artists in China paint them by the hundreds to supply the demand of American and European markets, and "Mona Lisa" is among the most popular requests.
Working in cramped studios, or at home with children running around, these artists can earn a few hundred dollars (US) for a weeks worth of work on paintings which are then sold retail through mail-order catalogues.
Reproducing the works of old masters by hand not only provides a way to earn a living but also a way of furthering their art education by perfecting painting techniques.
Loc-Dieu Abbey
In the summer of 1940, paintings from the Louvre, including the Mona Lisa, were hidden in Loc-Dieu to keep them safe from German troops.
Matthew Pillsbury
In addition to New York, Pillsbury continued to shoot within museums in both London and Paris, including the Musée du Louvre. At the Lourve he photographed the Mona Lisa.
Culture of France
The Louvre in Paris is one of the most famous and the largest art museums in the world, created by the new revolutionary regime in 1793 in the former royal palace. It holds a vast amount of art of French and other artists, e.g. the Mona Lisa, by Leonardo da Vinci, and classical Greek Venus de Milo and ancient works of culture and art from Egypt and the Middle East.
Which Lie Did I Tell?
"The Good Guy," an original story idea linking characters in the Littleton, Colorado school shooting and the JonBenet Ramsey murder, which took place in Boulder, CO.
"The Mastermind," expanding on the actual 1911 theft of the "Mona Lisa" painting, partially based on Seymour Reit's book "The Day They Stole The Mona Lisa".
Speculations about Mona Lisa
One long-standing mystery of the painting is why "Mona Lisa" features very faint eyebrows and apparently does not have any eyelashes. In October 2007, Pascal Cotte, a French engineer and inventor, says he discovered with a high-definition camera that Leonardo da Vinci originally did paint eyebrows and eyelashes. Creating an ultra-high resolution close-up that magnified "Mona Lisa"s face 24 times, Cotte says he found a single brushstroke of a single hair above the left eye. "One day I say, if I can find only one hair, only one hair of the eyebrow, I will have definitively the proof that originally Leonardo da Vinci had painted eyelash and eyebrow," said Cotte. The engineer claims that other eyebrow hairs that potentially could have appeared on the painting may have faded or been inadvertently erased by a poor attempt to clean the painting. In addition, Cotte says his work uncovered proof that her hands were originally painted in a slightly different position than in the final portrait.
Speculations about Mona Lisa
In 2004, experts from the National Research Council of Canada conducted a three-dimensional infrared scan. Because of the aging of the varnish on the painting it is difficult to discern details. Data from the scan and infrared were used by Bruno Mottin of the French Museums' "Center for Research and Restoration" to argue that the transparent gauze veil worn by the sitter is a guarnello, typically used by women while pregnant or just after giving birth. A similar guarnello was painted by Sandro Botticelli in his "Portrait of Smeralda Brandini" (c. 1470/1475), depicting a pregnant woman on display in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Furthermore, this reflectography revealed that "Mona Lisa"'s hair is not loosely hanging down, but seems attached at the back of the head to a bonnet or pinned back into a chignon and covered with a veil, bordered with a sombre rolled hem. In the 16th century, hair hanging loosely down on the shoulders was the customary style of unmarried young women or prostitutes. This apparent contradiction with her status as a married woman has now been resolved.
Mona Lisa replicas and reinterpretations
It is a painting of the same subject as Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa". The painting is claimed by a majority of experts to be mostly an original work of Leonardo dating from the early 16th century: a survey of all published opinions shows that 22 experts are certain that the major parts of the "Isleworth Mona Lisa" are the work of Leonardo da Vinci.
Mona Lisa
The painting was one of the first portraits to depict the sitter in front of an imaginary landscape, and Leonardo was one of the first painters to use aerial perspective. The enigmatic woman is portrayed seated in what appears to be an open loggia with dark pillar bases on either side. Behind her, a vast landscape recedes to icy mountains. Winding paths and a distant bridge give only the slightest indications of human presence. Leonardo has chosen to place the horizon line not at the neck, as he did with "Ginevra de' Benci", but on a level with the eyes, thus linking the figure with the landscape and emphasizing the mysterious nature of the painting.
Bernard and the Genie
Bernard then enters his flat with confidence (and with Josephus by his side), where his boss again accuses him of grand theft. However, this time, a different and much less notable painting is on the wall, and the detective learns the Mona Lisa has been returned to the Louvre. The police apologize for the intrusion and leave.
Mona Lisa replicas and reinterpretations
A replica of "Mona Lisa" publicized as the ""world's smallest"" was painted by Andrew Nichols of New Hampshire (USA) in 2011, intending "to break the record." Recreated at a 70:1 ratio, the miniature "Mona Lisa" measures approximately 1/4 by 7/16 inches (7 by 11 mm). Although his rendition drew media attention, it was never officially reported whether he had, in fact, broken any existing record. In 2013, a far smaller version of the painting, entitled the "Mini Lisa", was created by a Georgia Institute of Technology student named Keith Carroll. The replica was created to demonstrate a new scientific technique called thermochemical nanolithography (TCNL). The "Mini Lisa" was just wide, about 1/25,000th the size of the original.
In Search of Mona Lisa
The album takes its title from a deeply personal experience that Carlos Santana had when he visited the Louvre Museum in Paris for the first time and saw Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece with his own eyes. The artist explains to "Rolling Stone" that although he had been playing concerts in Paris since the early Seventies, he had never visited the Louvre until 2016. And once he did, he noticed a line like "you'd see for Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Rihanna or Adele... I was like, 'Damn, "Mona Lisa's" really popular worldwide to this day.'"
Mona Lisa replicas and reinterpretations
"Mona Lisa"'s iconic face has been available for years in all forms, reproduced on everything from birthday cards to refrigerator magnets, appearing in advertisements for fashion and travel industries, and on the cover of magazines.
Leonardo da Vinci's own status as "genius" has been suggested as a factor contributing to the mystique of his creation.
The eyes of Leonardo's original "Mona Lisa" appear within cover-graphics for Dan Brown's fictional novel "The Da Vinci Code".
The "Mona Lisa" portrait also appeared in the teaser trailer for the 2006 film of the same name, although a replica was used for filming, appears only briefly in the film, and plays a very small part in the story.
Along with Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring", "Mona Lisa" is among the most replicated works of art.
The sheer number and variety of replicas and reproductions since its creation in the early 16th century illustrates a so-called "self-reinforcing dynamic"; utilized in advertising because of its familiarity, thereby re-enforcing its fame.
France
Many museums in France are entirely or partly devoted to sculptures and painting works. A huge collection of old masterpieces created before or during the 18th century are displayed in the state-owned Musée du Louvre, such as Mona Lisa, also known as La Joconde. While the Louvre Palace has been for a long time a museum, the Musée d'Orsay was inaugurated in 1986 in the old railway station Gare d'Orsay, in a major reorganisation of national art collections, to gather French paintings from the second part of the 19th century (mainly Impressionism and Fauvism movements).
Lisa del Giocondo
Centuries after Lisa's death, the "Mona Lisa" became the world's most famous painting and took on a life separate from Lisa, the woman. Speculation by scholars and hobbyists made the work of art a globally recognized icon and an object of commercialization. In 2005, Lisa was definitively identified as the model for the "Mona Lisa".
Lisa del Giocondo
Lisa del Giocondo (; née Gherardini ; June 15, 1479 – July 15, 1542) was an Italian noblewoman and 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.
Mona Lisa
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 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.
Mona Lisa
Before its 1911 theft, the "Mona Lisa" was not widely known outside the art world. It was not until the 1860s that some critics, a thin slice of the French intelligentsia, began to hail it as a masterwork of Renaissance painting. Even in 1911, it was not popular among the lay public before the theft.
Mona Lisa
The "Mona Lisa" has had many different decorative frames in its history, owing to changes in taste over the centuries. In 1909, the Comtesse de Béhague gave the portrait its current frame, a Renaissance-era work consistent with the historical period of the "Mona Lisa". The edges of the painting have been trimmed at least once in its history to fit the picture into various frames, but no part of the original paint layer has been trimmed.
The Theft of the Mona Lisa
In 1911, Vincenzo Peruggia is a poverty-stricken Italian glazier who falls in love with Mathilde, a French hotel maid. Struck by the girl's resemblance to Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa", Vicenzo manages to steal the painting from the Louvre in hopes of impressing his sweetheart. But when the girl proves to be a fickle sort, the crestfallen hero confesses his crime and is carted off to jail. Unwilling to admit that he'd been led astray by a woman, Vicenzo claims that he stole the "Mona Lisa" to restore it to his native Italy, and as a result is hailed as a national hero!
Mona Lisa
In December 2015, it was reported that French scientist Pascal Cotte had found a hidden portrait underneath the surface of the painting using reflective light technology. The portrait is an underlying image of a model looking off to the side. Having been given access to the painting by Louvre in 2004, Cotte spent ten years using layer amplification methods to study the painting. According to Cotte, the underlying image is Leonardo's original Mona Lisa.
Mona Lisa
On 6 April 2005—following a period of curatorial maintenance, recording, and analysis—the painting was moved to a new location within the museum's Salle des États. It is displayed in a purpose-built, climate-controlled enclosure behind bulletproof glass. Since 2005 the painting has been illuminated by an LED lamp, and in 2013 a new 20 watt LED lamp was installed, specially designed for this painting. The lamp has a colour rendering index up to 98, and minimizes infrared and ultraviolet radiation which could otherwise degrade the painting. The renovation of the gallery where the painting now resides was financed by the Japanese broadcaster Nippon Television. About 6 million people view the painting at the Louvre each year.
Speculations about Mona Lisa
Maike Vogt-Lüerssen argues that the woman behind the famous smile is Isabella of Aragon, the Duchess of Milan. Leonardo was the court painter for the Duke of Milan for 11 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).
Mona Lisa replicas and reinterpretations
Mimicking the heavy pixelation of a highly magnified computer file, Canadian artist Robert McKinnon assembled 315 Rubik's Cubes into a 36 by 48 inch "Mona Lisa" mosaic, an effect dubbed "Rubik's Cubism" by French artist Invader.
Similarly, colored Lego "bricks" have been employed to replicate "Mona Lisa" in a mosaic motif.
A 2011 exhibition titled "Da Vinci, The Genius" at the Frazier Museum in Louisville, Kentucky attracted attention by having a "Mona Lisa" constructed by Lego artist Brian Korte.
Known as "Brick Art", so-called "pro" Lego builders such as Eric Harshbarger have made multiple replicas of Mona Lisa.
Matching the approximate 21 by 30 inch size (535 x 760+ mm) of Leonardo's original requires upwards of 5,000 standard Lego "bricks", but replicas measuring 6 by 8 feet have been built, requiring more than 30,000 bricks.
Mona Lisa
French poet Guillaume Apollinaire came under suspicion and was arrested and imprisoned. Apollinaire implicated his friend Pablo Picasso, who was brought in for questioning. Both were later exonerated. Two years later the thief revealed himself. Louvre employee Vincenzo Peruggia had stolen the "Mona Lisa" by entering the building during regular hours, hiding in a broom closet, and walking out with it hidden under his coat after the museum had closed. Peruggia was an Italian patriot who believed Leonardo's painting should have been returned for display in an Italian museum.
Isleworth Mona Lisa
Also, according to Henry F. Pulitzer in his book "Where is the Mona Lisa?" (1960), Gian Paolo Lomazzo, an artist and writer, refers in his "Trattato dell'arte della Pittura Scultura ed Architettura" (1584), to ""della Gioconda, e di Mona Lisa" (the Gioconda, and the Mona Lisa)". "La Gioconda" is sometimes used as an alternative title of the "Mona Lisa" hanging in the Louvre; the reference implies that these were, in fact, two separate paintings. Pulitzer reproduces the critical page from Lomazzo's tract in his own book.
When Monaliza Smiled
When Monaliza Smiled is a romantic comedy film that takes place in Amman, Jordan and tells the story of Monaliza (Tahani Salim) who was named after a postcard of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. In contrast to the “interesting” story behind her name, Monaliza lived an unpleasant upbringing, which made her grow her anti-social attitude and most importantly an extreme inability to draw a smile. Now, 37 years old, and after 17 years of waiting for her turn to come in the long queue of applicants, Monaliza finally gets a governmental job at the Directorate of Archiving and makes a decision that it’s time for her to go out into the world. This makes Afaf (Haifa Al Agha), her older unmarried agoraphobic sister who wants to keep Monaliza by her side, very unhappy. At the same time their outgoing neighbour, Rodaina(Suha Najjar), is trying to marry Monaliza off to her sleazy, older and still unwed brother, Suhail(Haidar Kfouf). Monaliza, fed up by Afaf constantly controlling her life, She tricks her into thinking that she is actually considering the proposal. In the office Monaliza meets Nayfeh (Nadera Omran), a bossy, prejudiced, disagreeable woman who keeps picking on everybody around and especially Hamdi (Shady Khalaf), the cheerful Egyptian cafeteria guy, who keeps trying to loosen her up with his coffee and jokes. Monaliza who’s been living in an emotional ice cube for a long time, gradually opens up to Hamdi’s charm and little by little lets him into her closed world and start to learn the joy of living. When Hamdi finally manages to draw a smile on Monaliza’s face, things start getting complicated; Hamdi’s work permit is expiring and he’ll soon become “illegal”. On the other hand, Monaliza’s trick backfires and suddenly everyone in the neighbourhood think that she is officially engaged to Suhail. Being socially inexperienced, and not wanting to lose the battle with Afaf, Monaliza doesn’t know what to do about that neither she tells Hamdi about it. Until one day, after a big fight with Nayfeh in the office, Hamdi impulsively decided to show up at Monaliza’s neighbourhood to meet her sister and propose, only to hear that Monaliza is already “engaged” to the grocer, Suhail. Feeling shocked and betrayed, Hamdi decides to go back to Egypt immediately and Monaliza thinks she must have lost him forever. But when Rodaina realizes the heartbreak, being a dedicated lover, she encourages Monaliza to run after him and work things out. Monaliza’s story overlaps with a bunch of other characters’ who surround her; the story of her sister Afaf and what brought her to become agoraphobic, and the story of Rodaina, who is still waiting for her husband who disappeared in Iraq several years ago, and the story of Nayfeh at the office and her inexcusable bitterness.The film was produced with the support of the Royal Film Commission (RFC) in Jordan/Education Feature Film program, the Landmark Hotel Amman, Ultra Water, Royal Jordanian Airlines, Jordan Tourism Board, the SAE institute in Jordan, and others. The film was shot in August 2011 in Amman, Jordan and is 95 minutes long. The filming took 30 days and it was concluded with a budget of US $170,000. The crew include:
Clos Lucé
Today, the Clos Lucé is a Leonardo da Vinci museum that reflects the prestigious history of the region and includes forty models of the various machines designed by Leonardo. The museum also includes a copy of the "Mona Lisa", painted in 1654 by Ambroise Dubois.
Speculations about Mona Lisa
The artist Susan Dorothea White has interpreted the masculine proportions of Mona Lisa's cranial architecture in her anatomical artworks "Anatomy of a Smile: Mona's Bones" (2002) and "Mona Masticating" (2006). Lillian Schwartz of Bell Labs suggests that the "Mona Lisa" is actually a self-portrait. She supports this theory with the results of a digital analysis of the facial features of the woman in the painting and those of the famous "Portrait of a Man in Red Chalk". However, the drawing on which Schwartz based the comparison may not be a self-portrait.
Mona Lisa (opera)
In the spring of 1913, Beatrice von Dovsky presented the libretto to the composer, who prepared a piano sketch during the following summer. He completed the opera during his eight-month military duty as a medical soldier in France and Belgium. The subject was very topical at the time, because the painting by Leonardo da Vinci had been stolen from the Louvre in 1911, and rediscovered in Florence in 1913.
The Incredible Adventures of Jack Flanders
There is a running joke concerning the Mona Lisa and in particular the artist Marcel Duchamp - famous for painting a parody of the Mona Lisa with a mustache and goatee. After Jack first encounters a Wanted poster for the sky pirate 'The Black Mona Lisa' and causes a mustache to appear on her image as a result, he tries to hide his own identity by using the pseudonym of Marcel Duchamp. Later he and the 'Marquis of Carumbas' are busking in the realm of the 'Never Mind' and the Marquis introduces Jack's act as "Nude Descending a Staircase", another work by Marcel Duchamp.Produced at the ZBS Studios, Fort Edward, NY
Isleworth Mona Lisa
In October 2013 Jean Pierre Isbouts published a book titled "The Mona Lisa Myth" examining the history and events behind the Louvre and Isleworth paintings and confirmed the latter's attribution to Leonardo. A companion film was released in March 2014. In April 2014, Albert Sauteur examined the perspective used to execute the "Isleworth Mona Lisa" and the "Mona Lisa" in the Louvre, and concluded that Leonardo painted both works. In July 2014 "The Mona Lisa Mystery" premiered on the PBS television station's series "Secrets of the Dead". This documentary investigated, at length, the authenticity of the Isleworth painting.
The Smile (book)
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 15th Century to early 16th Century. Although it is unknown who the sitter truly was, it is known for fact that the painting was created in Florence, Italy between the years 1503-1506.
Hugh Blaker
Shortly before World War I, Hugh Blaker discovered a painting of the "Mona Lisa" in the home of a Somerset nobleman in whose family it had been for nearly 100 years. This discovery led to the conjecture that Leonardo painted two portraits of Lisa del Giocondo: the famous one in The Louvre, and the one discovered by Blaker, who bought the painting and took it to his studio in Isleworth, London, from which it takes its name. According to "Encyclopedia Americana" and "The New York Times", The Isleworth Mona Lisa has been attributed to Leonardo, and is thought to be the unfinished portrait from which Raphael made his famous sketch (which is in the Louvre museum), and is in no sense a copy of the Louvre "Mona Lisa".
Mona Lisa (Prado's version)
Previous to its restoration, the painting was catalogued as an anonymous copy from the first quarter of the 16th century. However, it usually hung in the Prado alongside masterpieces of Italian artists such as Raphael or Andrea del Sarto; a lithography of the painting also exists, which is unusual for an anonymous copy.
Joconde
"La Joconde" is the French name of the Mona Lisa, which like about half of the collections of the Louvre, is included in the database, as one of 295 items by (42 including 6 paintings), after, or connected with Leonardo da Vinci. By November 2012, Joconde contained over 475,000 object listings online and over 290,000 with images, from 366 collections in France, including 209,350 drawings, 63,547 paintings, 34,561 prints, 34,102 sculptures or 16,631 costumes and their accessories and is still expanding.
Speculations about Mona Lisa
The same claim has been made for a version in the Vernon collection. The Vernon "Mona Lisa" is particularly interesting because it was originally part of the collection at the Louvre. Another version, dating from c. 1616, was given in c. 1790 to Joshua Reynolds by the Duke of Leeds in exchange for a Reynolds self-portrait. Reynolds thought it to be the real painting and the French one a copy, which has now been disproved. It is, however, useful in that it was copied when the original's colors were far brighter than they are now, and so it gives some sense of the original's appearance 'as new'. It is in a private collection, but was exhibited in 2006 at the Dulwich Picture Gallery.
Mona Lisa (singer)
Mona Lisa was born in Union, South Carolina, later relocating to Yonkers, New York. She is of mixed ancestry; her mother is African American/Native American mother and her father is Caucasian. Mona began singing in church at the age of 7. She also took dance lessons as a child and also entered numerous talent competitions, performing "Home" by Stephanie Mills with particular success.
Lisa Adams
Lisa Adams (born 1955) is an American painter who emerged in the mid 1980s. She is best known for her oil paintings of imaginary worlds that address both personal and collective realities. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is in the public collections of Eli Broad, the San Jose Museum of Art, the USC Fisher Museum of Art, the Long Beach Museum of Art, the Edward F. Albee Foundation, the Frederick R. Weisman Museum and the Laguna Museum of Art. She lives and works in downtown Los Angeles, California.
Mona Lisa replicas and reinterpretations
In 2015 and 2016, peer-reviewed academic publications concerning it confirmed its attribution to Leonardo da Vinci.
Mona Lisa (disambiguation)
The Mona Lisa is a portrait of a woman by Leonardo da Vinci.
Mona Lisa (Prado's version)
The origins of the "Prado's Mona Lisa" are linked to those of Leonardo's original, as both paintings were likely created simultaneously in the same studio. The first documentary reference was made in the 1666 inventory in the Galleria del Mediodia of the Alcazar in Madrid as "Mujer de mano de Leonardo Abince" ("Woman by Leonardo da Vinci's hand"). However, it is still unknown when the portrait entered the Spanish Royal Collection, though it could have been already in Spain in the early years of the 17th century. Since the Prado's founding in 1819, the replica has been part of its permanent collection, habitually displayed in the museum.
Yves Chaudron
According to that account, in 1910, Valfierno had conspired with Chaudron to steal the "Mona Lisa" and produce copies of the painting which would then be sold to private buyers as the genuine painting. The plan had been to sell each copy as the "original" while the location of the real painting was unknown.
Portrait painting
One of best-known portraits in the Western world is Leonardo da Vinci's painting titled "Mona Lisa", named for Lisa del Giocondo, a member of the Gherardini family of Florence and Tuscany and the wife of wealthy Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo. The famous "Mona Lisa smile" is an excellent example of applying subtle asymmetry to a face. In his notebooks, Leonardo advises on the qualities of light in portrait painting:
Mona Lisa replicas and reinterpretations
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.
Cultural references to Leonardo da Vinci
No painting has been more imitated and satirised than the "Mona Lisa". Beginning possibly with a naked portrait of Diane de Poitiers by Clouet, the pose and expression have been freely adapted to many female portraits.
The avant-garde art world has made note of the undeniable fact of the "Mona Lisa's" popularity. Because of the painting's overwhelming stature, Dadaists and Surrealists often produce modifications and caricatures. Already in 1883, "Le rire," an image of a Mona Lisa smoking a pipe, by Sapeck (Eugène Bataille), was shown at the "Incoherents" show in Paris. In 1919, Marcel Duchamp, one of the most influential modern artists, created "L.H.O.O.Q.", a "Mona Lisa" parody made by adorning a cheap reproduction with a moustache and a goatee, as well as adding the rude inscription, when read out loud in French sounds like "Elle a chaud au cul" literally translated: "she has a hot ass". This is a manner of implying the woman in the painting is in a state of sexual excitement and availability. This was intended as a Freudian joke, referring to Leonardo's alleged homosexuality. According to Rhonda R. Shearer, the apparent reproduction is in fact a copy partly modelled on Duchamp's own face.
Mona Lisa replicas and reinterpretations
At a 2009 festival in Sydney, Australia, a group of eight people spent three hours creating a "Mona Lisa" replica from 3,604 cups of coffee. The mosaic effect in this case was created by adding amounts of milk, or sometimes none, to cups of black coffee. The final product, measuring 20 by 13 feet, was dubbed the ""Mocha" Lisa."
Maurice "Toastman" Bennet, known for recreating masterpieces using toasted bread, parodied "Mona Lisa" in a toast mosaic. At a 2010 food-art festival in Hong Kong, Bennet "tiled" together approximately 6,000 slices of bread, using a blow-torch to achieve the desired "tone" on each piece of toast.
Mona Lisa
The model, Lisa del Giocondo,
was a member of the Gherardini family of Florence and Tuscany, and the wife of wealthy Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo. The painting is thought to have been commissioned for their new home, and to celebrate the birth of their second son, Andrea. The Italian name for the painting, "La Gioconda", means "jocund" ("happy" or "jovial") or, literally, "the jocund one", a pun on the feminine form of Lisa's married name, "Giocondo". In French, the title "La Joconde" has the same meaning.
Isleworth Mona Lisa
The painting was subsequently bought by Henry F. Pulitzer, who argued that it was Leonardo's only real portrait of Lisa Gherardini.
Bobbio
Bobbio is located in the heart of Val Trebbia, a valley described by Ernest Hemingway as "the most beautiful in the world". The town is nestled at the foot of Monte Penice, above sea level, on the left bank of the river Trebbia.
Its history is identified with the Abbey founded in 614 by St. Columbanus an Irish missionary, and as a result it became one of the principal centers of religious culture in medieval Italy, home to a famous library and basilica. The possessions of the abbey in the Lombard and Carolingian eras spanned the north of Italy.
Bobbio is a coveted tourist destination known for its history of art and culture, for nature lovers, and for its ancient monuments. It has from antiquity been a crossroads between different cultures such as the Piacentine, Ligurian, Piedmontese, and Pavian.
The historical center and heart of the city has maintained the characteristics of the medieval village.
One town landmark, the Ponte Vecchio, called "Ponte Gobbo" (Hunchback Bridge), also known as the "Devil's Bridge", is an ancient stone bridge of Roman origin, which crosses the river Trebbia in eleven irregular arches. 
The Shrine of Our Lady of Penice, located on top of Monte Penice, dominates the landscape, and is also popular in winter for its ski resorts.
Historians have speculated that Bobbio was the town in which Leonardo da Vinci completed the Mona Lisa.
Carla Glori in December 2011 has published her book "Enigma Leonardo:decifrazioni e scoperte" where the background of the portrait has been identified as the landscape of Bobbio.
La Joconde nue
La Joconde nue or Monna Vanna is a 1514-1516 charcoal drawing with white highlights by the school of Leonardo da Vinci. It is a nude copy of Leonardo's "Mona Lisa". It is now in the musée Condé.
Mona Lisa
Research in 2008 by a geomorphology professor at Urbino University and an artist-photographer revealed likenesses of "Mona Lisa"s landscapes to some views in the Montefeltro region in the Italian provinces of Pesaro and Urbino, and Rimini.
Mona Lisa
In response to the announcement of the discovery of this document, Vincent Delieuvin, the Louvre representative, stated "Leonardo da Vinci was painting, in 1503, the portrait of a Florentine lady by the name of Lisa del Giocondo. About this we are now certain. Unfortunately, we cannot be absolutely certain that this portrait of Lisa del Giocondo is the painting of the Louvre."
Mona Lisa Smile
Mona Lisa Smile is a 2003 American drama film produced by Revolution Studios and Columbia Pictures in association with Red Om Films Productions, directed by Mike Newell, written by Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal, and starring Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles and Maggie Gyllenhaal. The title is a reference to the "Mona Lisa", the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci, and the song of the same name, originally performed by Nat King Cole, which was covered by Seal for the movie. Julia Roberts received a record $25 million for her performance, the highest ever earned by an actress at that time.
George Pusenkoff
Leonardo da Vincis masterpiece Mona Lisa has become part of our cultural memory and has inspired many artists of the 20th century to create their own works with the painting. George Pusenkoff also dealt with the Mona Lisa. In 1993 he painted his first work with an image of the Mona Lisa. Its title is "said Duchamp". Since then, he has repeatedly worked with the image of Mona Lisa, to an extent as no other artist before him:" For Pusenkoff, the Mona Lisa has become his female alter ego, an iconic representation of his own artistic identity."In 1995 George Pusenkoff was sued by the photographer Helmut Newton because he saw in a work of art by Pusenkoff "Power of Blue" a (unauthorized) derivative work of one of his photographs entitled "Miss Livingstone I, Beverly Hills, 1981". Newton argued that Pusenkoff's artwork resembled his work in its critical components so much that it was plagiarism. The Copyright law of Germany clearly regulates in §24 that an "independent" work created in "Fair use (in German "freie Benutzung") of another's work" may be exploited without the author's permission. Pusenkoff referred to this norm. The court now had to decide whether the picture "Power of Blue" was to be regarded as an adaptation or a "fair use". The black and white photography of Helmut Newton shows a female nude from the front, sitting on a folding chair. The background is white, right and left the surroundings can be seen in outlines. The woman sits with her legs widely spread on the chair, one leg bent so that her genitals are clearly visible, and radiates self-confidence. The woman's face is recognizable and at the edge of the photo a stylized, yet recognizable, environment is visible. George Pusenkoff's work, on the other hand, is colored - in the typical deep blue tone quoted from Yves Klein. The nude itself is recognizable only as a silhouette. A yellow square covers the woman's shame and reaches up to her knee. The yellow square is to be understood as a reminiscence of Kasimir Malevich.
Mona Lisa
A version of the "Mona Lisa" known as the "Isleworth Mona Lisa" and also known as the "Earlier Mona Lisa" was first bought by an English nobleman in 1778 and was rediscovered in 1913 by Hugh Blaker, an art connoisseur. The painting was presented to the media in 2012 by the Mona Lisa Foundation. It is a painting of the same subject as Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. The painting is claimed by a majority of experts to be mostly an original work of Leonardo dating from the early 16th century. Other experts, including Zöllner and Kemp, deny the attribution.
Mona Lisa
In 2014, a France 24 article suggested that the painting could be sold to help ease the national debt, although it was noted that the "Mona Lisa" and other such art works were prohibited from being sold due to French heritage law, which states that "Collections held in museums that belong to public bodies are considered public property and cannot be otherwise."
Dali's Mustache
Another photo shows Mona Lisa with the face of Dalí and one original $10,000 bill in each of his strong hands. In one way, this is an interpretation of the well-known ready-made L.H.O.O.Q. of the French-American painter Marcel Duchamp from the time of Dadaism, which shows the world-famous painting of the Mona Lisa with mustache and goatee. On the other hand, Dali – identified by his trademark mustache – is personified as the new icon in place of the (former) "art icon "La Gioconda"".
Ronald Lauder
On June 18, 2006, he purchased from Maria Altmann and her family, the painting "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I" by Gustav Klimt for $135 million, the highest price ever paid for a painting at that time. Lauder called the painting "Our Mona Lisa". He reportedly saw Klimt's portrait as a youth in Vienna and had admired it since. The painting, a Nazi-looted art piece which had just been restored to Altmann following years of negotiation and litigation with the Austrian government, now forms the centerpiece of the museum's collection.
Mona Lisa replicas and reinterpretations
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 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.
Lárus List
List, who is represented by British Lawyer Graham Ross, claims that the domain was registered in relation to a painting entitled "Wa1m-ART" which was displayed in Kling og Bang Gallery in Reykjavík. The painting is based on Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. List said the idea behind his Mona Lisa-based artwork was to criticize American greed and cultural hegemony and that Wal-Mart’s lawsuit has proven his point.
Mona Lisa (Prado's version)
The Prado "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 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.
Mona Lisa's Revenge
The Mona Lisa tries to unleash a beast in the gallery basement, which she refers to as her brother. This creature is locked up in a vault and can only be released by using a puzzle box key. This key is destroyed by Harding who, despite his admiration for La Gioconda, cannot allow her to unleash the beast on the world. Luke, Clyde, and Rani have to try to solve the problem without Sarah Jane as she is now trapped in a painting. The Dark Rider captures Clyde and takes him to the vaults along with the Mona Lisa and Harding. As Mr Harding has destroyed the original key, Clyde is encouraged to draw another, that the Mona Lisa can bring to life as a replacement. This is done and the key is used, but before the beast can escape, a picture of K-9 drawn by Clyde also comes to life and fires at the beast, causing it to retreat into the vault. This sets off a chain reaction causing all the painting people to revert to being just works of art, and all those trapped in paintings to be released. The story ends with the Mona Lisa restored to her frame and Luke promising to tidy his room.Pearson Education published a simplified novelisation of this episode by Trevor Baxendale under the title "Painting Peril" for school literacy programs in September 2010.
Mona Lisa replicas and reinterpretations
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 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, hanging in one of the great museums of the world."
The image had yet to gain iconic status, and, Sassoon adds, was "not even the most valued painting in the Louvre."
The painting's theft on August 11, 1911, and the subsequent media frenzy surrounding the investigation and its recovery are contributing factors which ignited public interest and catapulted "Mona Lisa" to its current standing.
Salvator Mundi (Leonardo)
Referred to as the "Last da Vinci", "Salvator Mundi" was the only known painting by Leonardo still in private hands. Fewer than twenty other known works by Leonardo are held in museums around the world, including the "Mona Lisa" and "The Last Supper". The only work by Leonardo in North America, "Ginevra de' Benci", is held at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The museum purchased "Ginevra" in 1967 for $5 million in a private sale (equivalent to approximately $36.4 million in 2017), a world record at the time. "Salvator Mundi" is the first painting by the artist to appear in a public sale for 100 years.
Speculations about Mona Lisa
It has for a long time been argued that after Leonardo's death the painting was cut down by having part of the panel at both sides removed. Early copies depict columns on both sides of the figure. Only the edges of the bases can be seen in the original. However, some art historians, such as Martin Kemp, now argue that the painting has not been altered, and that the columns depicted in the copies were added by the copyists. The latter view was bolstered during 2004 and 2005 when an international team of 39 specialists undertook the most thorough scientific examination of the "Mona Lisa" yet undertaken. Beneath the frame (the current one was fitted to the "Mona Lisa" in 2004) there was discovered a "reserve" around all four edges of the panel. A reserve is an area of bare wood surrounding the gessoed and painted portion of the panel. That this is a genuine reserve, and not the result of removal of the gesso or paint, is demonstrated by a raised edge still existing around the gesso, the result of build up from the edge of brush strokes at the edge of the gesso area.
Mona Lisa replicas and reinterpretations
"Mona Lisa" is in the public domain and free to be exploited, explaining its reproduction on everything from postcards to coffee mugs, with no legal repercussions.
Artistic replicas and reinterpretations as a whole – demonstrating adequate modification – are considered "new" works eligible for copyright protection.
A fine example is artist Marcel Duchamp's "L.H.O.O.Q.", a 1919 work of art in which Duchamp embellished existing print-reproductions of Leonardo's "Mona Lisa" by merely adding a goatee ("shown below").
While copyright laws do not protect Leonardo's "Mona Lisa", Duchamp's "L.H.O.O.Q." falls within parameters of copyright law constituting "new" works.
For such reasons, "Mona Lisa" is commonly referenced academically in copyright courses.
Portrait of Dorothea Berck
Portrait of Dorothea Berck is a 1644 painting by Frans Hals that is in the collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art. It depicts Dorothea Berck at age 51, the wife of the prosperous Haarlem merchant Joseph Coymans, whose portrait Hals also painted. Both paintings were executed on the occasion of their daughter Isabella's wedding, whose marriage pendants Hals also painted.
The painting, like many of Hals's portraits, is inscribed and signed, but there is no mention of the identity of the sitter, and it was only identified as Berck in 1908. 
The portrait is noted for its classical similarity to the Mona Lisa. Like the Mona Lisa, she sits upright in a dark chair and rests her hands on either a dark desk or perhaps a large dress that surrounds her. Her ungloved hand may be clasping a book or part of her sleeve. The loose brushwork is typical of Hals and shows a fleeting gesture with the casual way her finger is hooked over her wrist. Portraits of subjects with one glove on and one glove off are common in Dutch 17th-century marriage pendant portraits. Gloves symbolize the wedding vows where the husband and wife each hold one of a pair of gloves. In this case, her husband Joseph Coymans is wearing the "other glove" in his pendant portrait. In Hals' marriage pendant portraits, the husband is always situated on the left and the woman on the right, and the light always comes from the left, shining fully on the woman.
Riisa Naka
Naka has a Swedish grandfather, making her one-quarter Swedish and three-quarters Japanese. She was named Riisa after Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa painting which her grandfather had an affection for.
Isleworth Mona Lisa
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.
Speculations about Mona Lisa
German imaging researchers Claus-Christian Carbon of the University of Bamberg and Vera Hesslinger of the University of Mainz performed further analysis of the Museo del Prado version, comparing it to Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa", and in May 2014 speculated that, based on perspective analysis of key features in the images, the two images were painted at the same time from slightly different viewpoints. They further proposed that two images may therefore form a stereoscopic pair, creating the illusion of 3-dimensional depth, when viewed side by side. However, a study published in 2017 has demonstrated that this stereoscopic pair in fact gives no reliable stereoscopic depth.
Mona Lisa
"Mona Lisa" has no clearly visible eyebrows or eyelashes. Some researchers claim that it was common at this time for genteel women to pluck these hairs, as they were considered unsightly. In 2007, French engineer Pascal Cotte announced that his ultra-high resolution scans of the painting provide evidence that "Mona Lisa" was originally painted with eyelashes and with visible eyebrows, but that these had gradually disappeared over time, perhaps as a result of overcleaning. Cotte discovered the painting had been reworked several times, with changes made to the size of the Mona Lisa's face and the direction of her gaze. He also found that in one layer the subject was depicted wearing numerous hairpins and a headdress adorned with pearls which was later scrubbed out and overpainted.
Mona Lisa replicas and reinterpretations
By the 20th century, "Mona Lisa" had already been a victim of satirical embellishment.
"Sapeck" (Eugène Bataille), in 1883, depicted "Mona Lisa" smoking a pipe ("shown above"). Titled "Le Rire" (The Laugh), the artwork was displayed at the "Incoherents" exhibition in Paris at the time of its creation, making it among the earliest known instances of "Mona Lisa"'s image being re-interpreted using contemporary irony.
Further interpretations by avante garde artists beginning in the early 20th century, coinciding with the artwork's theft, attest to "Mona Lisa"'s popularity as an irresistible target.
Dadaists and Surrealists were quick to modify, embellish and caricature "Mona Lisa"'s visage.
I, Mona Lisa
It's an intricately woven tale 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.
French Renaissance
In 1516, Francis I of France invited Leonardo da Vinci to the Château d'Amboise and provided him with the Château du Clos Lucé, then called Château de Cloux, as a place to stay and work. Leonardo, a famous painter and inventor, arrived with three of his paintings, namely the "Mona Lisa", "Sainte Anne", and "Saint Jean Baptiste", today owned by the Louvre museum of Paris.
Timeline of fictional stories about the Mona Lisa
Here below is a chronology of fictional and semi-fictional stories (including films, episodes in TV series, as well as literary works) that revolve, either wholly or partially, around the famous "Mona Lisa", a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo painted by Leonardo da Vinci during the Renaissance in Florence. The years listed on the left refer to the year of release of these works of fiction.
Roberto Vittori
The astronaut also had a painting of the artist George Pusenkoff titled "Single Mona Lisa (1:1)" with him and took photos with it on the International Space Station. It is the ultimate continuation of the project "Mona Lisa Travels" developed by Pusenkoff and could only be realized under difficult conditions. The authorities found the idea good in theory, but constantly put forward new reasons why the project was unrealizable. Only when George Pusenkoff wrote to the then Italian ambassador in Russia, Gianfranco Facco Bonetti, the possibility of realizing the idea arose. The connection between science and art, which was also important in Leonardo da Vinci's life, found here an "actualization" in the form of this journey of an image of Mona Lisa into space. For the action, Pusenkoff's painting was removed from the frame so that it could be rolled. On April 25, 2005, Vittori took the painting back to the Earth with him.
Speculations about Mona Lisa
It has been suggested that Leonardo created more than one version of the painting. Another contender is the "Isleworth Mona Lisa", which had been hidden in a Swiss bank vault for 40 years before being unveiled to the public on September 27, 2012. The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich has dated the piece to Leonardo's lifetime, and an expert in sacred geometry says it conforms to the artist's basic line structures.
Speculations about Mona Lisa
In December 2010, Italian art historian Silvano Vinceti reported that the Mona Lisa appears to have tiny letters and numbers in her eyes which are only apparent when viewed with a magnifying glass and shortly afterwards said that the model was Leonardo's male apprentice Gian Giacomo Caprotti (known as Salaì) and that the letters were clues to his identity. The Louvre, pointing out that he had had no access to the actual painting, said that after "every laboratory test possible" in 2004 and 2009 that "no inscriptions, letters or numbers, were discovered during the tests." and that "The ageing of the painting on wood has caused a great number of cracks to appear in the paint, which have caused a number of shapes to appear that have often been subject to over-interpretation".
Vandalism of art
"Mona Lisa" by Leonardo da Vinci has long been attracting vandals and is currently one of the best-protected artworks. In 1956, the lower part of the painting was severely damaged when a vandal doused the painting with acid while it was on display at a museum in Montauban, France. On 30 December of the same year, a young Bolivian named Ugo Ungaza Villegas threw a rock at the painting; this resulted in the loss of a speck of pigment near the left elbow, which was later painted over.
Mona Lisa replicas and reinterpretations
Radio personality Bruce Morrow presided over a promotional event during "Mona Lisa"'s exhibition in New York City. 70,000 entries of a "Best Mona" painting contest were exhibited at the Polo Grounds, with Salvador Dalí helping to pick the winner.
Following the painting's first American presentation, Andy Warhol in 1963 created multiple renditions in his screen-print Pop art style.
Bobbio
Some art historians, including Carla Glori, have suggested that Bobbio and its three-arched Ponte Gobbo (which was destroyed in 1472) are the landscape in the background of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa.
Alex Corina
Alex Corina was born in Bradford, where he attended Buttershaw Comprehensive School and Bradford College of Art. He moved in 1986 to Liverpool, where he worked as a civil servant for the Drugs Prevention and Community Safety Unit. Corina is known in Liverpool for his picture the Mona Lennon which features the Mona Lisa, John Lennon and the Liverpool waterfront in the background. It is a work that aims to represent Liverpool's past, present and future.
Isleworth Mona Lisa
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 after the location of Blaker's studio in Isleworth, west London) being the first.
Mona Lisa (crater)
Mona Lisa is a crater on Venus at latitude 25.6, longitude 25.1. It is 79.4 km in diameter and was named after Lisa Giacondo, Leonardo da Vinci's model for the painting "Mona Lisa".
Seymour Reit
Reit wrote over 80 books, primarily for children, on a variety of historical, technical, natural, and other subjects. One of his titles for adults, "The Day They Stole the Mona Lisa", written in 1981, is about the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911. In the book, Reit asserted that there were "two" genuine "Mona Lisas" in the world: the one in the Louvre, and an earlier version of the work painted by Leonardo da Vinci which was being held in a bank vault in New Jersey (the so-called "Vernon Mona Lisa"). A long-planned movie adaptation of the book has never materialized, although the Internet Movie Database lists a movie by the same title tentatively planned for 2009.
Mona Lisa
Before the 1962–1963 tour, the painting was assessed for insurance at $100 million. The insurance was not bought. Instead, more was spent on security. Adjusted for inflation using the US Consumer Price Index, $100 million in 1962 is around $782 million in 2015 making it, in practice, by far the most valued painting in the world.
Mona (name)
In northern Europe, where the name is much more popular, Mona is interpreted as a diminutive of Monika or, rarely, of Ramona or Simona. It is sometimes associated with the title of Leonardo da Vinci's painting Mona Lisa, although in that context the word Mona is actually a title rather than a name. The word mona also means "cute", "monkey" and "doll" in Spanish. In Sweden, Mona's name day is May 4.
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 perfect their painting techniques and prove their skills.
Modern Art Gallery Sant'Anna
The Modern Art Gallery Sant'Anna (Italian: Galleria d'Arte Moderna Sant'Anna) is a modern art museum in Palermo. It is located in a complex consisting of the former Franciscan convent of the Church of Sant'Anna la Misericordia and the adjacent Palazzo Bonet, in the quarter of the Kalsa, inside the historic centre of the city.
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.
Mona Lisa (opera)
Mona Lisa, Op. 31 is a 1915 opera by the German composer Max von Schillings on a libretto by Beatrice von Dovsky. It was dedicated to the Philosophy Faculty of the University of Heidelberg, where the composer was awarded the title of professor.
Portrait
One of the best-known portraits in the Western world is Leonardo da Vinci's painting titled "Mona Lisa", which is a painting of Lisa del Giocondo. What has been claimed as the world's oldest known portrait was found in 2006 in the Vilhonneur grotto near Angoulême and is thought to be 27,000 years old.
Speculations about Mona Lisa
People of Arezzo in the Val di Chiana, a valley in Tuscany, have traditionally claimed the "Mona Lisa" landscape as theirs. An article published in the journal "Cartographica" suggests that the landscape comprises two parts which when placed together correspond to Leonardo's topographic map, the "Val di Chiana".
Speculations about Mona Lisa
In January 2012 Museo del Prado in Madrid announced that it had discovered and almost fully restored a copy of the painting by a pupil of Leonardo, very possibly painted alongside the master. The copy gives a better indication of what the portrait looked like at the time, as the varnish on the original has become cracked and yellowed with age.
Vinkovci Treasure
Initially the finds were put in display for a short time in Vinkovci in the condition in which they were found. They were later moved to the Archaeological museum in the capital where they are to be conserved and studied. It is intended that they will ultimately be returned to the City Museum in Vinkovci where they will be put on permanent display, possibly in a new building dedicated for that purpose. According to the museum's Hrvoje Vulić, "This will be our kind of Mona Lisa. So you go to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa, but then you look at everything else. Thus we also hope that this treasure will attract more people to Vinkovci."
Lego in popular culture
A 2011 exhibition titled "Da Vinci, The Genius" at the Frazier History Museum in Louisville, Kentucky attracted attention by having a "Brick Art" Mona Lisa replica constructed by Lego artist Brian Korte. 
Lego builders such as Eric Harshbarger have made multiple replicas of Mona Lisa. 
Matching the approximate 21 by 30 inch size (535 x 760+ mm) of Leonardo's original requires upwards of 5,000 standard Lego "bricks", but replicas measuring 6 by 8 feet have been built, requiring more than 30,000 bricks. 
The Little Artists (John Cake and Darren Neave) have created an entire Modern Art collection in Lego form. Their exhibition 'Art Craziest Nation'
was shown at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, UK.