The Mona Lisa (Italian, Spanish: La Gioconda; French: La Joconde), is an oil painting on poplar wood by the famous Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci and is perhaps the most famous painting in art history; few other works of art are as romanticized, celebrated, or reproduced. It is owned by the French government and hangs in the Musée du Louvre in Paris.
The painting shows a woman looking out at the viewer with what is often described as an "enigmatic smile"
eonardo began the Mona Lisa in 1503 and completed it three or four years later.
The painting was brought from Italy to France by Leonardo in 1516 when King François I invited the great painter to work at the Clos Lucé near the king's chateau in Amboise. The King bought the painting for 4,000 écus.
At some point after Leonardo's death the painting was cut down by having part of the panel at both sides removed. Originally there were two columns on either side of the figure, as we know from early copies. The edges of the bases can still be seen.
The painting first resided in Fontainebleau, later in the Palace of Versailles. After the French Revolution, it was moved to the Louvre. Napoleon I had it moved to his bedroom in the Tuileries Palace; later it was returned to the Louvre. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, it was moved from the Louvre to a hiding place elsewhere in France.
The painting was not very well-known until the mid-nineteenth century, when it began to be appreciated by artists of the emerging Symbolist movement, who associated it with their ideas about feminine mystique. This view of the painting was most fully expressed by the critic Walter Pater in his 1867 essay on Leonardo, in which he described her as a kind of mythic embodiment of eternal femininity, who is "older than the rocks among which she sits" and who "has been dead many times and learned the secrets of the grave".
The painting's increasing fame was further emphasised when it was stolen on August 21, 1911. On September 7, avant-garde French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who had once called for the Louvre to be "burnt down", was arrested and put in jail on suspicion of theft. His friend Pablo Picasso was brought in for questioning, but both were later released. At the time, the painting was believed lost forever. It turned out that Louvre employee Vincenzo Peruggia stole it by simply walking out the door with it hidden under his coat. The theft was master-minded by Eduardo de Valfierno, a con-man who had commissioned the French art forger Yves Chaudron to make copies of the painting so he could sell them as the missing original. Because he didn't need the original for his con, he never contacted Peruggia again after the crime. After having kept the painting in his apartment for two years, Peruggia grew impatient and was finally caught when he attempted to sell it to a Florence art dealer; it was exhibited all over Italy and returned to the Louvre in 1913.
During World War II the painting was again removed from the Louvre and brought to safety, first in Chateau Amboise, then in the abbey of Loc-Dieu and finally in the Ingres Museum in Montauban.
In 1956, the lower part of the painting was severely damaged after an acid attack. Several months later someone threw a stone at it. It is now covered by security glass.
From December 14, 1962 to March of 1963, the painting was lent to the United States and shown in New York City and Washington D.C. In 1974, the painting went on tour again and was exhibited in Tokyo and Moscow before being returned to the Louvre for good.
Prior to the 1962-63 tour, the painting was assessed for insurance purposes at $100 million. According to the Guinness Book of Records, this makes the Mona Lisa the most valuable painting ever insured.