When was the Mona Lisa painted?
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According to Leonardo's early biographer Giorgio Vasari, Leonardo had started to paint "Mona Lisa" in 1503, but "left it unfinished". However, a fully finished painting of a "certain Florentine lady" surfaced again in 1517, shortly before Leonardo's death and in his private possession. The latter painting almost certainly is the one that now hangs in the Louvre. Based on this contradiction, supporters of the authenticity of the "Isleworth Mona Lisa" claim it is the unfinished "Mona Lisa", made at least partially by Leonardo, and the Louvre "Mona Lisa" a later version of it, made by Leonardo for his own use.
Isleworth Mona Lisa
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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.
Mona Lisa replicas and reinterpretations
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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
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""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.
Mona Lisa replicas and reinterpretations
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Salvador Dalí, famous for his surrealist work, painted "Self portrait as Mona Lisa" in 1954. In 1963 following the painting's visit to the United States, Andy Warhol created serigraph prints of multiple "Mona Lisa"s called "Thirty are Better than One", like his works of Marilyn Monroe ("Twenty-five Coloured Marilyns", 1962), Elvis Presley (1964) and Campbell's soup (1961–62). The "Mona Lisa" continues to inspire artists. A French urban artist known pseudonymously as Invader has created versions on city walls in Paris and Tokyo using a mosaic style. A collection of "Mona Lisa" parodies may be found on YouTube. A 2014 "New Yorker" magazine cartoon parodies the supposed enigma of the "Mona Lisa" smile in an animation showing progressively maniacal smiles.
Mona Lisa
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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.
Isleworth Mona Lisa
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On 21 August 1911, the painting was stolen from the Louvre. The theft was not discovered until the next day, when painter Louis Béroud walked into the museum and went to the Salon Carré where the "Mona Lisa" had been on display for five years, only to find four iron pegs on the wall. Béroud contacted the head of the guards, who thought the painting was being photographed for promotional purposes. A few hours later, Béroud checked back with the Section Chief of the Louvre who confirmed that the "Mona Lisa" was not with the photographers. The Louvre was closed for an entire week during the investigation.
Mona Lisa
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Today the "Mona Lisa" is considered the most famous painting in the world, but until the 20th century it was simply one among many highly regarded artworks.
Once part of King Francis I of France's collection, the "Mona Lisa" was among the first artworks to be exhibited in Louvre, which became a national museum after the French Revolution. From the 19th century Leonardo began to be revered as a genius and the painting's popularity grew from the mid-19th century when French intelligentsia developed a theme that it was mysterious and a representation of the femme fatale.
The Baedeker guide in 1878 called it "the most celebrated work of Leonardo in the Louvre", but the painting was known more by the intelligentsia than the general public.
The 1911 theft of the "Mona Lisa" and its subsequent return was reported worldwide, leading to a massive increase in public recognition of the painting. During the 20th century it was an object for mass reproduction, merchandising, lampooning and speculation, and was claimed to have been reproduced in "300 paintings and 2,000 advertisements". It has been said that the "Mona Lisa" was regarded as "just another Leonardo until early last century, when the scandal of the painting's theft from the Louvre and subsequent return kept a spotlight on it over several years."
Mona Lisa
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The first and most extensive recorded cleaning, revarnishing, and touch-up of the "Mona Lisa" was an 1809 wash and revarnishing undertaken by Jean-Marie Hooghstoel, who was responsible for restoration of paintings for the galleries of the Musée Napoléon. The work involved cleaning with spirits, touch-up of colour, and revarnishing the painting. In 1906, Louvre restorer Eugène Denizard performed watercolour retouches on areas of the paint layer disturbed by the crack in the panel. Denizard also retouched the edges of the picture with varnish, to mask areas that had been covered initially by an older frame. In 1913, when the painting was recovered after its theft, Denizard was again called upon to work on the "Mona Lisa". Denizard was directed to clean the picture without solvent, and to lightly touch up several scratches to the painting with watercolour. In 1952, the varnish layer over the background in the painting was evened out. After the second 1956 attack, restorer Jean-Gabriel Goulinat was directed to touch up the damage to "Mona Lisa"s left elbow with watercolour.
Mona Lisa
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"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