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.
Speculations about Mona Lisa
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 evidence suggests that Leonardo's father was a friend of del Giocondo: "The portrait of "Mona Lisa", done when Lisa del Giocondo was aged about 24, was probably commissioned by Leonardo's father himself for his friends as he is known to have done on at least one other occasion." In 2007, genealogist Domenico Savini identified the princesses Natalia and Irina Strozzi as descendants of Lisa del Giocondo. Scan data obtained in 2004 suggested that the painting dated from around 1503 and commemorated the birth of the Giocondo's second son.