Resilient: This is a catchphrase that fits like a glove. In the five hundred and twenty years of her existence, the beautiful Italian has lived many adventures without ever losing her enigmatic smile or lowering the “camera gaze” that follows whoever looks at her.
His adventures began in 1516 with a journey on the back of a donkey, nose in a bag. At the invitation of King Francis I, Leonardo da Vinci, then 64 years old, crossed the Alps with Monna Lisa on the back of his animal. Bad timing for one whose master had begun the sketch thirteen years earlier. She is almost certainly identified almost five centuries later as Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco Del Giocondo, a wealthy cloth merchant and neighbor of the painter.
Once she falls into the hands of the King of France, the Florentine begins her life in the castle. From Amboise to Fontainebleau, via Versailles and the Tuileries, she became a discreet companion to the monarchs. Until 1802, when it was nailed to the Louvre. In the palace-turned-museum, she leads the peaceful life of a masterpiece that has not yet achieved fame. Until Monday, August 21, 1911.
Antonio Bin, pictured here in 1962, was a Florentine copyist and painter who created 184 replicas of the Mona Lisa and other works by Leonardo da Vinci. Paris game / © Izis
Irina and Natalia Strozzi in June 2011 in front of the portrait of their grandmother Lisa Gherardini, who served as a model for Leonardo da Vinci. Paris game / © Jacques Lange
Silvano Vincenti, President of the National Committee for the Valorization of Italy's Historic Properties, near one of the skeletons resting in the crypt of the Sant'Orsola monastery in Florence, where Lisa Gherardini is buried. Paris game / © Jacques Lange
“The Mona Lisa is stolen,” was the headline in the daily newspapers in August 1911.
“The Mona Lisa has been stolen,” was the headline in the daily newspapers. There is panic on Rue de Rivoli. Prefect Lépine arrives with 60 investigators who find the frame and glass of the painting in a corridor. The beauty was kidnapped between 7:30 and 8:30 a.m. on the day the museum closed. Rewards were promised, denunciations increased. Picasso was interrogated and Apollinaire was imprisoned in the Santé for five days because a petty criminal told the police that he had sold them statuettes stolen from the Louvre a few months earlier.
One piece of news follows another: The sinking of the “Titanic” in April 1912 caused Madame Lisa, as Bonaparte called her, to be forgotten. There was no news for more than two years. Until the day Vincenzo Peruggia, a stained glass artist working at the Louvre, proposed the lady to an Italian art dealer… who immediately alerted the authorities.
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Anthropometric sheet by Vincenzo Peruggia. Getty Images / © Bettmann Archive
For two years, Monna Lisa remained hidden, wrapped in velvet, in Vincenzo Peruggia's room in Paris, near the Canal Saint-Martin. Getty Images / © SeM/Universal Images Group
The thief admits that he removed “The Mona Lisa” to “return to his country a work stolen by Napoleon.” The simple and poorly informed man is sentenced to a year and a half in prison, reduced to seven months. And on December 30, 1913, “The Mona Lisa” returned triumphantly to Paris, greeted by President Gaston Doumergue and a cheering crowd.
However, the world's most famous woman only became known to the public a few months later, when the outbreak of the First World War forced the authorities to place her first in Bordeaux and then in Toulouse. Rebelote in August 1939. Towards Chambord and Amboise, where she is hidden in a cellar. In 1945 she returned to the Louvre. She only came out twice.
Periodically, as here in 1997, the condition of the painting is carefully checked, especially as the old varnishes applied to protect the canvas are wearing off. Paris game / © Benjamin Auger
Regularly, as here in 1997, the condition of the painting is carefully checked, especially because the wood of the frame is functional. Paris game / © Benjamin Auger
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“The Mona Lisa” has not left the Louvre since 1974: too risky and too expensive
In 1962 on the initiative of André Malraux, who took him across the Atlantic in a first class cabin on the “France”. Kennedy received it and presented it in Washington and then in New York. Twelve years later she traveled to Tokyo with a short stopover in Moscow. It hasn't left the Louvre since 1974: according to experts, it's too risky and too expensive. Together with insurance, transport, accompaniment and security measures, loaning the “Mona Lisa” just to bring it to a provincial museum for three months would cost between 30 and 35 million euros. Not to mention the loss of revenue for the Paris museum, which receives between 8 and 10 million visitors every year just to see it.
In December 1962, at the initiative of the Minister of Culture André Malraux, the painting crossed the Atlantic in a container on board the “France” to be presented to the Americans as part of an exhibition at the National Gallery. Paris game / © Paul Slade
In December 1962, “The Mona Lisa” was presented to Americans during an exhibition at the National Gallery opened by John and Jackie Kennedy. Paris game / © Paul Slade
On the occasion of its loan from France, “The Mona Lisa” invites itself to dinner at the French Embassy in the United States. Paris game / © Paul Slade
Even protected behind an armored window, his life is not a long, calm river. In 1957, a young Bolivian threw a stone at her, injuring her left elbow. In August 2009, a Russian tourist threw a cup at her head and last year she was scalded by an environmental activist. But nothing really affects him. Hardly, in five hundred years, has she lost a little lipstick. According to Jacques Franck, art historian and Leonardo da Vinci specialist, “despite her age, she is still very presentable.”
“The Mona Lisa” on the front page of Paris Match on December 22, 1962, after her arrival in New York. Paris Match / © Paris Match
In April 2017, Jeff Koons posed in front of the Mona Lisa that inspired one of his creations for Vuitton, the Da Vinci bag from the Masters collection. Paris game / © Hubert Fanthomme
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