A painting a day · No. 4 of 38
Mona Lisa
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)
c. 1503–1519 · Oil on poplar panel · Musée du Louvre, Paris
The story
Almost certainly Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine silk merchant, Francesco del Giocondo — which is why the Italians call her La Gioconda. Leonardo never handed it over. He kept working on it for well over a decade and carried it with him to France, where it stayed.
Look closer
- There are no hard edges at the corners of her mouth and eyes. Leonardo blended them into shadow (sfumato, 'gone up in smoke'), so her expression seems to change as you look.
- The horizon behind her does not line up: it sits lower on the left than on the right.
- She has no visible eyebrows or eyelashes.
Did you know
Its fame exploded in 1911, when a former Louvre worker, Vincenzo Peruggia, walked out with it under his smock. It was missing for two years, and the newspapers made it a household name.
Why we can show it
Leonardo da Vinci died in 1519. UK copyright lasts for the artist’s life plus 70 years, so even under today’s rules this painting would have been free for anyone to show since 1590. The photograph is a faithful copy of a flat work, which creates no new copyright. We do not store the picture: it comes from Wikimedia Commons each time it is needed. More on this.