50 Fun Facts About Mona Lisa

Who painted the Mona Lisa?

It is the only one of his portraits whose authenticity has never been seriously questioned.

The Mona Lisa is painted in oil on a panel of which wood?

The unrestrained panel warped with humidity, causing a crack that runs down to the sitter's hairline.

The woman generally identified as the sitter, Lisa del Giocondo, was married to a merchant in what trade?

Vasari wrote that Leonardo painted the portrait for her husband, Francesco del Giocondo; the couple had six children.

The Italian title La Gioconda is a pun on the sitter's married name and means what?

The French title La Joconde carries the same meaning; 'Mona' itself is a contraction of ma donna, meaning my lady.

Which Renaissance biographer wrote in 1550 that Leonardo painted 'Mona Lisa' for Francesco del Giocondo?

His account came 31 years after Leonardo's death and also claims the artist lingered over it four years and left it unfinished.

What 2005 find at Heidelberg University dated Leonardo's work on the portrait to October 1503?

The note by Agostino Vespucci compares Leonardo to the Greek painter Apelles and says he was then painting Lisa del Giocondo.

The soft, smoky blending of tones behind the face's ambiguous expression is called what?

Leonardo described it as 'without lines or borders, in the manner of smoke'.

What facial feature does the Mona Lisa famously appear to lack?

Vasari described the eyebrows in detail; engineer Pascal Cotte's 2007 scans suggest they were painted but vanished, perhaps through overcleaning.

Margaret Livingstone found in 2003 that the smile does what when you look at the mouth?

She argues the smile is drawn in low spatial frequencies best seen with peripheral vision, so it is more striking when you look at the eyes.

Leonardo placed the horizon of the background landscape where, unusually linking figure and scenery?

In his earlier portrait of Ginevra de' Benci he had set it at the neck; the landscape includes icy mountains and a distant bridge.

Which French king acquired the Mona Lisa after Leonardo's death?

He had invited Leonardo to live at the Clos Lucé near Amboise in 1516; the artist probably brought the unfinished panel with him.

Which physical problem around 1517 may explain why Leonardo left the painting unfinished?

Some scholars think he kept refining the work until 1516 or 1517, more than a decade after starting it.

Louis XIV moved the painting from Fontainebleau to which palace, its home until the Revolution?

It went on permanent display at the Louvre in 1797, and later spent a brief spell in an emperor's bedroom.

The Mona Lisa spent a brief period in whose bedroom in the Tuileries Palace?

The Italian thief who took it a century later claimed, wrongly, that Napoleon had stolen it from Italy.

In which year was the Mona Lisa stolen from the Louvre?

The museum closed for a week and the theft turned a painting known mainly to connoisseurs into a global celebrity.

Which poet was arrested and jailed on suspicion of the theft, and implicated a famous painter friend?

He named Pablo Picasso, who was brought in for questioning; both were innocent.

The real thief, Vincenzo Peruggia, had done what job at the Louvre?

He walked in wearing a workman's white smock on a Monday when the museum was closed and simply removed it.

How was Peruggia finally caught, after keeping the painting in his apartment for two years?

He contacted a Tuscan dealer under the name Leonardo V.; the Uffizi's Giovanni Poggi authenticated the panel and called the police.

How long did Peruggia serve in prison for the theft?

Many Italians hailed him as a patriot; the painting was exhibited at the Uffizi for over two weeks before returning to Paris in January 1914.

What did a Bolivian visitor throw at the painting in December 1956, dislodging a speck of pigment?

The painting has been behind bulletproof glass ever since; a man had slashed it with a razor blade a few years earlier.

What was thrown at the protective glass in May 2022 by a man disguised as a woman in a wheelchair?

He said he wanted to raise awareness of climate change; environmental activists threw soup at the glass in January 2024.

The Mona Lisa was sprayed with red paint at the Tokyo National Museum in 1974 in protest at what?

The same year it also travelled to Moscow; the glass case kept it undamaged.

From December 1962 to March 1963 the painting was lent to which country?

About 1.7 million New Yorkers queued for a 20-second glimpse; a faulty sprinkler at the Met nearly drenched it.

The Mona Lisa's 1962 insurance valuation, a Guinness record, was how much?

That is roughly $1 billion in today's money and makes it, in practice, the most valuable painting in the world.

Where was the painting hidden in 1939 to keep it from the Nazis?

It went to Amboise, then Loc-Dieu Abbey and Chambord, ending up at the Musée Ingres in Montauban.

In which room of the Louvre is the Mona Lisa displayed?

About 10.2 million people a year came to see it as of 2019, and in 2024 the museum decided to give it a room of its own.

A former Louvre director estimated what share of visitors come only to see the Mona Lisa?

Henri Loyrette's remark came as the museum was drawing more than 9 million visitors a year.

Marcel Duchamp's 1919 parody L.H.O.O.Q. added what to a cheap reproduction?

Read aloud in French the letters form a vulgar pun meaning roughly 'she has a hot backside'.

Andy Warhol's multiple-image print of the painting, made after its 1963 US visit, was titled what?

Salvador Dalí had painted a Self portrait as Mona Lisa in 1954 and later wrote an essay on why people attack the picture.

Nat King Cole's 1950 hit 'Mona Lisa' won which prize for the film Captain Carey, U.S.A.?

Written by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston, Cole's version spent five weeks at number one on Billboard.

After its 2012 cleaning, the Prado's version of the Mona Lisa came to be seen as what?

It is credited to a pupil working in the same studio, and shows a landscape that was long hidden under black overpaint.

The Isleworth Mona Lisa, which shows the sitter looking younger, is painted on what?

It surfaced in 1913 via connoisseur Hugh Blaker and spent 40 years in a Swiss bank vault before a 2012 unveiling; its attribution is disputed.

Which artist made a pen-and-ink sketch of the composition around 1505, with prominent flanking columns?

He borrowed the format for works such as Portrait of Maddalena Doni; the columns hint at a possible second version.

Leonardo's assistant Salaì owned a painting listed as 'la Gioconda' at his death in which year?

Some scholars think he sold a version to the French king in 1518 and kept another; his heirs' inventory has fuelled the two-Mona-Lisa theory.

Sigmund Freud theorised that the smile was borrowed from whom?

He saw the same approving smile in the Virgin of the Rocks and The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne.

A 2004 infrared scan led one researcher to argue the sitter's gauze veil was a guarnello, worn by whom?

The three-dimensional scan was made by Canada's National Research Council.

The Louvre opened as a museum in which year?

It launched with 537 paintings, mostly royal and confiscated church property; the Mona Lisa followed in 1797.

Leonardo spent his last three years in France and died in which year?

He was born out of wedlock near the Tuscan town of Vinci in 1452 and trained in Verrocchio's Florentine workshop.

Roughly how many major works are attributed to Leonardo, many of them unfinished?

Despite the small output, The Last Supper is the most reproduced religious painting of all time.

The 2003 film Mona Lisa Smile stars Julia Roberts as an art history teacher at which college?

Roberts earned a then-record $25 million for the role, set in 1953.

Which Italian city was Lisa del Giocondo born in, in 1479?

She was born on Via Maggio, though for years she was thought to have been born at the family's country villa near Greve.

During the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony, who 'stole' the Mona Lisa from the Louvre?

The animated caper ended with the painting floating in the Seine.

Which writer in 1859 called the Mona Lisa a 'sphinx of beauty who smiles so mysteriously'?

Earlier critics praised the picture for realism; the mid-19th century recast it as an object of mystery and romance.

One researcher identifies the background bridge as a Roman-era span over which river?

Silvano Vincenti pointed to the Romito di Laterina bridge near Arezzo; others favour Lombardy or the Montefeltro hills.

Which of Leonardo's pupils, along with Salaì, is a plausible painter of the Prado copy?

Melzi inherited Leonardo's notebooks; the Prado version was long dismissed as an unimportant copy after arriving in 1819.

Which painter first reported the Mona Lisa missing in August 1911?

The Louvre was shut for a week; poet Apollinaire was jailed and his friend Picasso questioned before both were cleared.

What did Pascal Cotte's 2007 scans suggest had happened to the Mona Lisa's eyebrows and eyelashes?

Cotte also found the face had been resized and the gaze redirected in earlier layers, one showing many hairpins.

What shape are the two walnut braces inserted into the back of the panel to stabilise its crack?

The unconstrained poplar panel warped with humidity; the upper brace fell out sometime between 1888 and 1905, or perhaps during the theft.

Aboard which ocean liner was the Mona Lisa shipped to the United States in 1962?

In New York 1.7 million people queued for a 20-second glance, and a faulty sprinkler at the Met nearly soaked the glass case.

How many visitors did the Louvre receive in 2014?

A former director estimated 80 percent came only to see the Mona Lisa, which since 2005 has hung in a climate-controlled bulletproof enclosure.