Mona Lisa
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 and Alessandro Vezzosi, are of the opinion that the painting is characteristic of Leonardo's style in the final years of his life, post-1513. Other academics argue that, given the historical documentation, Leonardo would have painted the work from 1513. According to Leonardo's contemporary, Giorgio Vasari, "after he had lingered over it four years, [he] left it unfinished". Leonardo, later in his life, is said to have regretted "never having completed a single work".
Circa 1504, Raphael executed a pen and ink sketch, today in the Louvre museum, in which the subject is flanked by large columns. Experts universally agree it is based on Leonardo's portrait of "Mona Lisa". Other later copies of the "Mona Lisa", such as those in the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo and The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, also display large flanking columns. As a result, it was originally thought that the "Mona Lisa" in the Louvre had side columns and had been cut. However, as early as 1993, Zöllner observed that the painting surface had never been trimmed. This was confirmed through a series of tests conducted in 2004. In view of this, Vincent Delieuvin, curator of 16th-century Italian painting at the Louvre museum states that the sketch and these other copies must have been inspired by another version, while Frank Zöllner states that the sketch brings up the possibility that Leonardo executed another work on the subject of Mona Lisa.
Mona Lisa replicas and reinterpretations
""Mona Lisa" (Two Times)," "Four "Mona Lisa"s," and "Thirty Are Better Than One" illustrate Warhol's method of silkscreening an image repetitively within the same work of art.
Also in 1963, Fernando Botero – who had already painted ""Mona Lisa", Age Twelve" in 1959 – painted another, this time in what would become his trademark "Boterismo" style of rendering figures disproportionately "plump".
"Mona Lisa" is also referenced in artwork by Contemporary art luminaries such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, adding to the veritable "who's who" list of artists putting their own spin on the portrait.
A paint by numbers version of "Mona Lisa" accompanied artist Suzanne Lacy during her 1977 travelogue "Travels with Mona", documenting the painting process at landmark locations throughout Europe and Central America.
From the 1980s through the end of the 20th Century, "Mona Lisa" continued to be the subject of re-interpretation among a new generation of emerging artists.
Street artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, who came into prominence in the 1980s, created "Federal Reserve Note" and "Apocalipse 7", respectively, juxtaposing "Mona Lisa" within compositions suiting their styles.
Ballpoint art pioneer Lennie Mace created his "Mona a'la Mace" replica in 1993, a ballpoint "PENting" commissioned by Pilot pen company and featured on CBS News.
Artist Sophie Matisse, great-granddaughter of artist Henri Matisse, in her 1997 "Monna Lisa (Be Back in Five Minutes)" faithfully replicated the setting of the original painting, but omitted Mona Lisa from the scene; a concept she would repeat using other iconic artworks.