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.
Jean Delville
Whatever its interpretation, this very unusual portrait has had a strong effect on viewers. It can be seen as eerie and supernatural (Bade, Femme Fatale, 1979), or as "a positively magical vision" (Jullian, "Dreamers of Decadence", 1974). It is sometimes referred to as the Mona Lisa of the 1890s, and is also given the title La Mysteriosa . Today, few details are available about the sitter, and even her first name goes unmentioned in the literature. The most extensive information on her identity is given by Delville’s son Olivier in his biography of the painter. It is not a first-hand account, however, as Olivier was born at least ten years after the picture was executed. According to him, Stuart Merrill (a Symbolist poet who published his works in Paris and Brussels) had a house near to the Delvilles in Forest at that time. Olivier adds that "the young Mrs Merrill-Rion" was a Belgian, and that Delville was struck by her strange beauty and depicted her with a mediumistic character. It is likely that Delville painted other portraits of Mrs Stuart Merrill and the 1893 drawing 'Medusa', in the same media is undoubtedly one of these.