Lisa del Giocondo is Andrea's daughter. The main secret of Mona Lisa - her smile - still haunts scientists

At the very beginning of the 16th century, the famous Italian painter and sculptor Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) painted one of the greatest masterpieces modern civilization– portrait of Mona Lisa or Gioconda. Since then, this work of art has haunted people. It's safe to say that there is a mystery to the Mona Lisa. Scientists, artists and simply art connoisseurs ask themselves a number of questions. Who is shown in the picture? Why couldn't the artist finish this work? How does it affect people?

But before we begin to unravel the historical charades, let's first understand the title of the work. Why is it called either “La Gioconda” or “Mona Lisa”? It is officially believed that Leonardo took up the task of painting a portrait of Lisa Gherardini. This is a historical figure who lived in Florence. Lisa belonged to noble women. She was born in 1479 and died in 1542. Some experts call the year 1551. At the time of painting the portrait she was 22-24 years old.

At first the painting was called “Portrait of Mrs. Lisa Gioconda.” Gioconda is the surname of the husband of the posing girl. My mistress in Italian means “ma donna”, and is abbreviated as “mona”. That is, “Mona Lisa” is “Mrs. Lisa”. And the portrait was first called “Gioconda” in 1525 by Da Vinci’s student, the artist Salai. Both names took root and have survived to this day in this form.

Nai more interest in a unique portrait the Mona Lisa smiles. It has been debated for hundreds of years. But no less a mystery is the image itself captured on the canvas. Officially, this is Lisa, née Gherardini. But there are experts who claim that this is not her at all. There are several assumptions about who the artist really depicted.

The most exotic version claims that La Gioconda is a self-portrait of da Vinci himself. This is by no means idle speculation. The portrait was subjected to computer research, and it showed that the artist’s facial features coincided with the girl’s facial features. Such an amazing similarity made it possible to claim that Leonardo created his self-portrait, reflecting in it the hidden feminine traits of his own nature.

Images of Leonardo da Vinci and Mona Lisa

This version indirectly explains why da Vinci painted the picture for almost 4 years. Moreover, he did not give it to the customer. The work remained with him, then passed on to a student, and later ended up in the collection of the French king Francis I. One should also take into account the Italian’s predisposition to various puzzles, jokes and riddles. He was very fond of such things and could well “make fun” of future researchers of his work.

But the mystery of the Mona Lisa is not limited to Leonardo's self-portrait. There is another exotic version. She claims that the portrait shows a young man in a woman's dress. What kind of young man? This is a student of a great artist named Salai. Leonardo and Szalai were together for 25 years. It is assumed that they were connected not only by friendly relations, but also homosexual. This gave reason to assume that Salai was dressing up in women's dress and posed for the picture. This version also explains why the portrait remained with the great artist.

In the first quarter of the 20th century, it was suggested that the portrait depicts Duchess Constanza d'Avalos (1460-1541). She was given the nickname “The Cheerful”, and in Italian this means “la gioconda”, that is, “Gioconda”. At the time of painting the portrait, the Duchess became a widow. Eneo Irpino sang it in his poem. Interestingly, this poem mentions a portrait of the Duchess, allegedly painted by Leonardo da Vinci.

Portrait of Salai - student of Leonardo da Vinci

It is known that the duchess's lover (widows also have lovers) was Giuliano Medici. It is assumed that it was he who ordered the portrait of his mistress. But a couple of years passed and Giuliano married Filiberte of Savoy. It is quite clear that love affair on the side could compromise her newly-made husband. Therefore, he disowned the portrait, and Leonardo kept it for himself.

There is also an assumption that the portrait depicts not the Duchess of Constanza, but another mistress of Giuliano, Pacifica, the widow of Giovanni Antonio Brandano. This woman gave birth to Giuliano's son named Ippolito.

There are many other versions and assumptions. However, in 2005, notes from a certain Florentine official were discovered. In particular, he wrote that Leonardo was working on three paintings at the same time. One of them is a portrait of Lisa Gherardini.

Thus, there is indirect evidence that the portrait of the Mona Lisa is a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of the Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo. The painting was commissioned by him on the occasion of the birth of his second son Andrea. However, the mystery of the Mona Lisa remains so, since this evidence also raises many questions and assumptions.

Several centuries after her death, her portrait, the Mona Lisa, was acquired global recognition and is now considered one of the greatest works of art in history. The painting is of interest to researchers and amateurs and has become the subject of a wide variety of speculation. The final match between Lisa del Giocondo and the Mona Lisa was established in 2005.

Biography

Childhood

Mona Lisa

Like many other Florentines, Francesco was a connoisseur of art and patronized artists. His son, Bartolomeo, commissioned Antonio di Donnino Mazzieri to decorate the family crypt in the Basilica of Santissima Annunziata with fresco. Andrea del Sarto, commissioned by another family member, painted Madonna. Francesco ordered ital from Domenico Puligo. Domenico Puligo painting depicting Saint Francis of Assisi.

The generally accepted version is that the portrait of Lisa del Giocondo was painted by Leonardo, and in this case, it could have been commissioned from the artist by her husband, probably to celebrate the birth of his son and the purchase of the house.

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Sources

Literature

In English

• Pallanti, Giuseppe. Mona Lisa Revealed: The True Identity of Leonardo's Model. - Florence, Italy: Skira, 2006. - ISBN 88-7624-659-2.
• Sassoon, Donald (2001). "". History Workshop Journal(Oxford University Press) 2001 (51): Abstract. DOI:10.1093/hwj/2001.51.1. ISSN.

Excerpt characterizing Lisa del Giocondo

Leonardo da Vinci's painting "Mona Lisa" is the first thing tourists from any country associate with the Louvre. This is the most famous and mysterious work of painting in the history of world art. Her mysterious smile still makes people think and charm people who do not like or are not interested in painting. And the story of her abduction at the beginning of the 20th century turned the picture into living legend. But first things first.

The history of the painting

“Mona Lisa” is just an abbreviated name for the painting. In the original it sounds like “Portrait of Mrs. Lisa Giocondo” (Ritratto di Monna Lisa del Giocondo). From Italian the word ma donna translates as “my lady.” Over time, it turned into simply mona, and from it the well-known name of the painting came.

Contemporary biographers of the artist wrote that he rarely took orders, but with the Mona Lisa there was initially a special story. He devoted himself to the work with particular passion, spent almost all his time painting it and took it with him to France (Leonardo was leaving Italy forever) along with other selected paintings.

It is known that the artist began the painting in 1503-1505 and only applied the last stroke in 1516, shortly before his death. According to the will, the painting was given to Leonardo's student, Salai. It remains unknown how the painting migrated back to France (most likely Francis I acquired it from the heirs of Salai). During the time of Louis XIV, the painting moved to the Palace of Versailles, and after French Revolution The Louvre became her permanent home.

There is nothing special in the creation story; the lady with the mysterious smile in the picture is of greater interest. Who is she?

According to the official version, this is a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo, the young wife of the prominent Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo. Very little is known about Lisa: she was born in Florence into a family of nobility. She got married early and led a calm, measured life. Francesco del Giocondo was a great admirer of art and painting and patronized artists. It was his idea to order a portrait of his wife in honor of the birth of their first child. There is a hypothesis that Leonardo was in love with Lisa. This can explain his special attachment to the painting and long time work on it.

This is surprising, practically nothing is known about the life of Lisa herself, and her portrait is the main work of world painting.

But Leonardo’s contemporary historians are not so clear. According to Giorgio Vasari, the model could have been Caterina Sforza (a representative of the ruling dynasty Italian Renaissance, was considered main woman that era), Cecilia Gallerani (the beloved of Duke Louis Sforza, the model of another portrait of a genius - “Lady with an Ermine”), the artist’s mother, Leonardo himself, a young man in women’s clothing and simply a portrait of a woman who was the standard of beauty of the Renaissance.

Description of the picture

The small-sized canvas depicts a woman of average size, wearing a dark cape (according to historians, a sign of widowhood), sitting half-turned. Like other Italian Renaissance portraits, Mona Lisa has no eyebrows and the hair on the top of her forehead is shaved. Most likely, the model posed on the balcony, as the parapet line is visible. It is believed that the painting was slightly cropped; the columns visible behind were fully included in the original size.

It is believed that the composition of the painting is the standard of the portrait genre. It is painted according to all the laws of harmony and rhythm: the model is inscribed in a proportional rectangle, the wavy strand of hair is in tune with the translucent veil, and folded hands give the picture a special compositional completeness.

Mona Lisa Smile

This phrase has long lived separately from the picture, turning into literary stamp. This is the main mystery and charm of the canvas. It attracts the attention of not only ordinary viewers and art critics, but also psychologists. For example, Sigmund Freud calls her smile “flirting.” And the special look is “fleeting.”

Current state

Due to the fact that the artist loved to experiment with paints and painting techniques, the painting has become very dark by now. And strong cracks form on its surface. One of them is located a millimeter above Gioconda's head. In the middle of the last century, the canvas went on “tour” to museums in the USA and Japan. Museum of Fine Arts. A.S. Pushkin was lucky enough to host the masterpiece during the exhibition.

Fame of Gioconda

The painting was very highly regarded among Leonardo's contemporaries, but over the decades it became forgotten. Until the 19th century, it was not remembered until the moment when the romantic writer Théophile Gautier spoke about the “Gioconda smile” in one of his literary works. It’s strange, but until that moment this feature of the picture was simply called “pleasant” and there was no secret in it.

The painting gained real popularity among the general public in connection with its mysterious abduction in 1911. The newspaper hype surrounding this story gained enormous popularity for the film. She was only found in 1914, where she was all this time remains a mystery. Her kidnapper was Vincezo Perugio, an employee of the Louvre, an Italian by nationality. The exact motives for the theft are unknown; he probably wanted to take the painting to Leonardo’s historical homeland, Italy.

Mona Lisa today

“Mona Lisa” still “lives” in the Louvre; as the main artistic figure, she is given a separate room in the museum. She suffered from vandalism several times, after which in 1956 she was placed in bulletproof glass. Because of this, it glares a lot, so seeing it can sometimes be problematic. Nevertheless, it is she who attracts the majority of visitors to the Louvre with her smile and fleeting glance.

Leonardo da Vinci. Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco Giocondo (Mona Lisa or Gioconda). 1503-1519 Louvre, Paris

Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci is the most mysterious painting. Because she is very popular. When there is so much attention, an unimaginable number of secrets and speculations appear.

So I couldn’t resist trying to solve one of these mysteries. No, I won't look for encrypted codes. I will not unravel the mystery of her smile.

I'm worried about something else. Why does the description of the Mona Lisa's portrait by Leonardo's contemporaries not coincide with what we see in the portrait from the Louvre? Is there really a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo, hanging in the Louvre? And if this is not the Mona Lisa, then where is the real Gioconda kept?

The authorship of Leonardo is indisputable

Almost no one doubts that he painted the Louvre Mona Lisa himself. It is in this portrait that the master’s sfumato method (very subtle transitions from light to shadow) is revealed to the maximum. A barely perceptible haze, shading the lines, makes the Mona Lisa almost alive. It seems that her lips are about to part. She will sigh. The chest will rise.

Few could compete with Leonardo in creating such realism. Except that . But in applying the method, sfumato was still inferior to him.

Even compared to earlier portraits of Leonardo himself, the Louvre Mona Lisa is an obvious advance.

Leonardo da Vinci. Left: Portrait of Ginerva Benci. 1476 National Gallery Washington. Middle: Lady with an ermine. 1490 Czartoryski Museum, Krakow. Right: Mona Lisa. 1503-1519 Louvre, Paris

Leonardo's contemporaries described a completely different Mona Lisa

There is no doubt about Leonardo's authorship. But is it correct to call the lady in the Louvre the Mona Lisa? Anyone may have doubts about this. Just read the description of the portrait, a younger contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci. Here's what he wrote in 1550, 30 years after the master's death:

“Leonardo undertook to make a portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife, for Francesco del Giocondo, and, having worked on it for four years, left it unfinished... the eyes have that shine and that moisture that is usually visible in a living person... The eyebrows could not be more natural: the hair grow densely in one place and less often in another in accordance with the pores of the skin... The mouth is slightly open with the edges connected by the redness of the lips... Mona Lisa was very beautiful... her smile is so pleasant that it seems as if you are contemplating a divine rather than a human being... ”

Notice how many details from Vasari's description do not match the Mona Lisa from the Louvre.

At the time of painting the portrait, Lisa was no more than 25 years old. The Mona Lisa from the Louvre is clearly older. This is a lady who is over 30-35 years old.

Vasari also talks about eyebrows. Which the Mona Lisa doesn't have. However, this can be attributed to poor restoration. There is a version that they were erased due to unsuccessful cleaning of the painting.
Leonardo da Vinci. Mona Lisa (fragment). 1503-1519

Scarlet lips with a slightly open mouth are completely absent in the Louvre portrait.

About the lovely smile divine being You can also argue. It doesn't seem that way to everyone. It is sometimes even compared to the smile of a confident predator. But this is a matter of taste. One can also argue about the beauty of the Mona Lisa mentioned by Vasari.

The main thing is that the Louvre Mona Lisa is completely finished. Vasari claims that the portrait was abandoned unfinished. Now this is a serious inconsistency.

Where is the real Mona Lisa?

So if it’s not the Mona Lisa hanging in the Louvre, where is it?

I know of at least three portraits that fit Vasari's description much more closely. In addition, they were all created in the same years as the Louvre portrait.

1. Mona Lisa from Prado

This Mona Lisa received little attention until 2012. Until one day restaurateurs cleared the black background. And lo and behold! Under the dark paint was a landscape - an exact copy of the Louvre background.

Pradov's Mona Lisa is 10 years younger than her competitor from the Louvre. Which corresponds to the real age of the real Lisa. She looks nicer. She has eyebrows after all.

However, experts did not claim the title main picture peace. They admitted that the work was done by one of Leonardo's students.

Thanks to this work, we can imagine what the Louvre Mona Lisa looked like 500 years ago. After all, the portrait from the Prado is much better preserved. Due to Leonardo's constant experiments with paints and varnish, the Mona Lisa became very dark. Most likely, she also once wore a red dress, not a golden brown one.

2. Flora from the Hermitage

Flora fits Vasari's description very well. Young, very beautiful, with an unusually pleasant smile of scarlet lips.

In addition, this is exactly how Melzi himself described his teacher Leonardo’s favorite work. In his correspondence he calls her Gioconda. The painting, he said, depicted a girl of incredible beauty with a Columbine flower in her hand.

However, we do not see her “wet” eyes. In addition, it is unlikely that Signor Giocondo would allow his wife to pose with her breasts exposed.

So why does Melzi call her La Gioconda? After all, it is this name that leads some experts to believe that the real Mona Lisa is not in the Louvre, but in.

Perhaps there has been some confusion over the 500 years. From Italian “Gioconda” is translated as “Merry”. Maybe that’s what the students and Leonardo himself called his Flora. But it so happened that this word coincided with the name of the portrait’s customer, Giocondo.

This portrait was revealed to the general public about 100 years ago. An English collector bought it from Italian owners in 1914. They allegedly had no idea what treasure they had.

A version was put forward that this is the same Mona Lisa that Leonardo painted to order for Signor Giocondo. But he didn’t finish it.

It is also assumed that the Mona Lisa that hangs in the Louvre was already painted by Leonardo 10 years later. Already for himself. Taking as a basis the already familiar image of Signora Giocondo. For the sake of my own artistic experiments. So that no one would bother him or demand a painting.

The version looks plausible. In addition, Isleworth's Mona Lisa is unfinished. I wrote about this. Notice how undeveloped the woman's neck and the landscape behind her are. She also looks younger than her Louvre rival. It’s as if they really portrayed the same woman 10-15 years apart.

The version is very interesting. If not for one big BUT. Isleworth's Mona Lisa was painted on canvas. Whereas Leonardo da Vinci wrote only on the board. Including the Louvre Mona Lisa.

Crime of the century. The abduction of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre

Maybe the real Mona Lisa hangs in the Louvre. But Vasari described it too inaccurately. And Leonardo has nothing to do with the three paintings above.

However, in the 20th century, one incident occurred that still casts doubt on whether the real Mona Lisa hangs in the Louvre.

In August 1911, the Mona Lisa disappeared from the museum. They searched for her for 3 years. Until the criminal revealed himself in the most stupid way. Placed an advertisement in the newspaper for the sale of the painting. A collector came to see the painting and realized that the person who submitted the ad was not crazy. Under his mattress was actually the Mona Lisa collecting dust.
Louvre. Crime scene photo (Mona Lisa disappeared). 1911

The culprit turned out to be Italian Vincenzo Perugia. He was a glazier and artist. Worked for several weeks at the Louvre on glass protective boxes for paintings.

According to his version, patriotic feelings awoke in him. He decided to return to Italy the painting stolen by Napoleon. For some reason, he was sure that all the paintings by Italian masters in the Louvre were stolen by this dictator.

The story is very suspicious. Why did he not let anyone know about himself for 3 years? It is possible that he or his customer needed time to make a copy of the Mona Lisa. As soon as the copy was ready, the thief made an announcement that would obviously lead to his arrest. By the way, he was sentenced to a ridiculous term. Less than a year later, Perugia was already free.

So it may well be that the Louvre received back a very high-quality fake. By that time, they had already learned how to artificially age paintings and pass them off as originals.

In contact with

I want to sing to the smile
Mona Liza.
O n a - the riddle of the renaissance -
For centuries .
And there is no beautiful red smile,
S o t o r i l i
E GREAT MASTER MODEL -
A Cossack's wife.

H e g o t a l a n t u v i d e l v n e ,
simple citizen,
WHICH HE SAW A LOT
Still ,
Beautiful soulful goddess,
P o n i l t a i n u
W omen and mothers, at a glance
In the eyes

She smiles modestly
MEETS
L o u e m a t e r i n s t a
first call
And there is nothing around,
besides the secrets,
WHICH I LIVE
in n u t r i n e e .

“Mona Lisa”, aka “Gioconda”; (Italian: Mona Lisa, La Gioconda, French: La Joconde), full title - Portrait of Mrs. Lisa del Giocondo, Italian. Ritratto di Monna Lisa del Giocondo) is a painting by Leonardo da Vinci, located in the Louvre (Paris, France), one of the most famous works of painting in the world, which is believed to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of the Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo, written around 1503-1505.

It will soon be four centuries since the Mona Lisa deprives everyone of their sanity who, having seen enough of it, begins to talk about it.

The full title of the painting is Italian. Ritratto di Monna Lisa del Giocondo - “Portrait of Mrs. Lisa Giocondo.” In Italian, ma donna means “my lady” (cf. English “milady” and French “madam”), in a shortened version this expression was transformed into monna or mona. The second part of the model's name, considered the surname of her husband - del Giocondo, in Italian also has direct meaning and is translated as “cheerful, playing” and, accordingly, la Gioconda - “cheerful, playing” (cf. with English joking).

The name “La Joconda” was first mentioned in 1525 in the list of the inheritance of the artist Salai, heir and student of da Vinci, who left the painting to his sisters in Milan. The inscription describes it as a portrait of a lady named La Gioconda.

Even the first Italian biographers of Leonardo da Vinci wrote about the place this painting occupied in the artist’s work. Leonardo did not shy away from working on the Mona Lisa - as was the case with many other orders, but, on the contrary, devoted himself to it with some kind of passion. All the time he had left from working on “The Battle of Anghiari” was devoted to her. He spent considerable time on it and, leaving Italy in mature age, took with him to France among some other selected paintings. Da Vinci had a special affection for this portrait, and also thought a lot during the process of its creation; in the “Treatise on Painting” and in those notes on painting techniques that were not included in it, one can find many indications that undoubtedly relate to “La Gioconda” "

Vasari's message


"Leonardo da Vinci's Studio" in an 1845 engraving: Gioconda is entertained by jesters and musicians

According to Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), an author of biographies of Italian artists who wrote about Leonardo in 1550, 31 years after his death, Mona Lisa (short for Madonna Lisa) was the wife of a Florentine man named Francesco del Giocondo (Italian: Madonna Lisa). Francesco del Giocondo), on whose portrait Leonardo spent 4 years, yet left it unfinished.

“Leonardo undertook to make a portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife, for Francesco del Giocondo, and, after working on it for four years, he left it unfinished. This work is now in the possession of the French king in Fontainebleau.
This image gives anyone who would like to see to what extent art can imitate nature the opportunity to comprehend this in the easiest way, for it reproduces all the smallest details that the subtlety of painting can convey. Therefore, the eyes have that shine and that moisture that is usually visible in a living person, and around them are all those reddish reflections and hairs that can be depicted only with the greatest subtlety of craftsmanship. Eyelashes, made in the same way as hair actually grows on the body, where it is thicker and where it is thinner, and located according to the pores of the skin, could not be depicted with more naturalness. The nose, with its lovely holes, pinkish and delicate, seems alive. The mouth, slightly open, with the edges connected by the scarlet lips, with the physicality of its appearance, seems not like paint, but real flesh. If you look closely, you can see the pulse beating in the hollow of the neck. And truly we can say that this work was written in such a way that it plunges any arrogant artist, no matter who he is, into confusion and fear.
By the way, Leonardo resorted to the following technique: since Mona Lisa was very beautiful, while painting the portrait he held people who played the lyre or sang, and there were always jesters who kept her cheerful and removed the melancholy that she usually conveys. painting performed portraits. Leonardo's smile in this work is so pleasant that it seems as if one is contemplating a divine rather than a human being; the portrait itself is considered an extraordinary work, for life itself could not be different.”

This drawing from the Hyde Collection in New York may be by Leonardo da Vinci and is a preliminary sketch for a portrait of the Mona Lisa. In this case, it is curious that at first he intended to place a magnificent branch in her hands.

Most likely, Vasari simply added a story about jesters to entertain readers. Vasari's text also contains an accurate description of the eyebrows missing from the painting. This inaccuracy could only arise if the author described the picture from memory or from the stories of others. Alexey Dzhivelegov writes that Vasari’s indication that “the work on the portrait lasted four years is clearly exaggerated: Leonardo did not stay in Florence for so long after returning from Caesar Borgia, and if he had started painting the portrait before leaving for Caesar, Vasari would probably , I would say that he wrote it for five years." The scientist also writes about the erroneous indication of the unfinished nature of the portrait - “the portrait undoubtedly took a long time to paint and was completed, no matter what Vasari said, who in his biography of Leonardo stylized him as an artist who, in principle, could not finish any major work. And not only was it finished, but it is one of Leonardo’s most carefully finished works.”

An interesting fact is that in his description Vasari admires Leonardo's talent for conveying physical phenomena, and not the similarity between the model and the painting. It seems that it was this “physical” feature of the masterpiece that left a deep impression on visitors to the artist’s studio and reached Vasari almost fifty years later.

The painting was well known among art lovers, although Leonardo left Italy for France in 1516, taking the painting with him. According to Italian sources, it has since been in the collection of the French king Francis I, but it remains unclear when and how he acquired it and why Leonardo did not return it to the customer.

Perhaps the artist really did not finish the painting in Florence, but took it with him when leaving in 1516 and applied the final stroke in the absence of witnesses who could tell Vasari about it. If so, he completed it shortly before his death in 1519. (In France, he lived in Clos Luce, not far from the royal castle of Amboise).

In 1517, Cardinal Luigi d'Aragona visited Leonardo in his French workshop. A description of this visit was made by the cardinal's secretary Antonio de Beatis: “On October 10, 1517, Monsignor and others like him visited Messire Leonardo da Vinci, a Florentine, in one of the remote parts of Amboise, a gray-bearded old man, over seventy years old, the most excellent artist of our time, he showed His Excellency three pictures: one of a Florentine lady, painted from life at the request of Friar Lorenzo the Magnificent Giuliano de' Medici, another of St. John the Baptist in his youth, and the third of St. Anna with Mary and the Christ Child; all extremely beautiful. From the master himself, due to the fact that he was paralyzed at that time right hand, one could no longer expect new good works.” According to some researchers, “a certain Florentine lady” means the “Mona Lisa”. It is possible, however, that this was another portrait, from which no evidence or copies have survived, as a result of which Giuliano Medici could not have any connection with the Mona Lisa.


A 19th-century painting by Ingres shows, in an exaggeratedly sentimental manner, the grief of King Francis at Leonardo da Vinci's deathbed

Model identification problem

Vasari, born in 1511, could not see Gioconda with his own eyes and was forced to refer to information given anonymous author the first biography of Leonardo. It is he who writes about the silk merchant Francesco Giocondo, who ordered a portrait of his third wife from the artist. Despite the words of this anonymous contemporary, many researchers doubted the possibility that the Mona Lisa was painted in Florence (1500-1505), since the sophisticated technique may indicate a later creation of the painting. It was also argued that at that time Leonardo was so busy working on “The Battle of Anghiari” that he even refused to accept the Marquis of Mantua Isabella d’Este’s order (however, he had a very difficult relationship with this lady).

The work of a follower of Leonardo is a depiction of a saint. Perhaps her appearance depicts Isabella of Aragon, Duchess of Milan, one of the candidates for the role of Mona Lisa

Francesco del Giocondo, a prominent Florentine popola, at the age of thirty-five in 1495, married for the third time to a young Neapolitan from the noble Gherardini family, Lisa Gherardini, full name Lisa di Antonio Maria di Noldo Gherardini (15 June 1479 – 15 July 1542, or about 1551).

Although Vasari gives information about the woman’s identity, there is still for a long time uncertainty remained and many versions were expressed:
Caterina Sforza, illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Milan Galeazzo Sforza
Isabella of Aragon, Duchess of Milan
Cecilia Gallerani (model of another portrait of the artist - “Lady with an Ermine”)
Constanza d'Avalos, who also had the nickname "The Cheerful One", that is, La Gioconda in Italian. Venturi in 1925 suggested that “La Gioconda” is a portrait of the Duchess of Costanza d’Avalos, the widow of Federigo del Balzo, glorified in a small poem by Eneo Irpino, which also mentions her portrait painted by Leonardo. Costanza was the mistress of Giuliano de' Medici.
Pacifica Brandano - another mistress of Giuliano Medici, mother of Cardinal Ippolito Medici (According to Roberto Zapperi, the portrait of Pacifica was commissioned by Giuliano Medici for his later legitimization illegitimate son, eager to see his mother, who by this time had already died. At the same time, according to the art critic, the customer, as usual, left Leonardo complete freedom of action).
Isabela Gualanda
Just ideal woman
A young man dressed as a woman (for example, Salai, Leonardo's lover)
Self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci himself
Retrospective portrait of the artist's mother Catherine (1427-1495) (suggested by Freud, then by Serge Bramly, Rina de "Firenze).

However, the version about the correspondence of the generally accepted name of the picture to the personality of the model in 2005 is believed to have found final confirmation. Scientists from the University of Heidelberg studied the notes in the margins of the tome, the owner of which was a Florentine official, a personal acquaintance of the artist Agostino Vespucci. In notes in the margins of the book, he compares Leonardo with the famous ancient Greek painter Apelles and notes that “da Vinci is now working on three paintings, one of which is a portrait of Lisa Gherardini.” Thus, the Mona Lisa really turned out to be the wife of the Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo - Lisa Gherardini. The painting, as scientists prove in this case, was commissioned by Leonardo for the new home of the young family and to commemorate the birth of their second son, named Andrea.

According to one of the put forward versions, “Mona Lisa” is a self-portrait of the artist


A note in the margin proved the correct identification of the model of the Mona Lisa.

The rectangular painting depicts a woman in dark clothes, turning half-turned. She sits in a chair with her hands clasped together, one hand resting on its armrest and the other on top, turning in the chair almost to face the viewer. Parted, smoothly and flatly lying hair, visible through a transparent veil draped over it (according to some assumptions - an attribute of widowhood), falls on the shoulders in two thin, slightly wavy strands. A green dress in thin ruffles, with yellow pleated sleeves, cut out on a white low chest. The head is slightly turned.

Art critic Boris Vipper, describing the picture, points out that traces of Quattrocento fashion are noticeable in the face of Mona Lisa: her eyebrows and hair on the top of her forehead are shaved.

The copy of the Mona Lisa from the Wallace Collection (Baltimore) was made before the edges of the original were trimmed, and allows the missing columns to be seen.

Fragment of the Mona Lisa with the remains of the column base

The lower edge of the painting cuts off the second half of her body, so the portrait is almost half-length. The chair in which the model sits stands on a balcony or loggia, the parapet line of which is visible behind her elbows. It is believed that earlier the picture could have been wider and accommodated two side columns of the loggia, of which at the moment there are two bases of the columns, fragments of which are visible along the edges of the parapet.

The loggia overlooks a desolate wilderness with meandering streams and a lake surrounded by snow-capped mountains that extends to a high skyline behind the figure. “Mona Lisa is represented sitting in a chair against the backdrop of a landscape, and the very juxtaposition of her figure, very close to the viewer, with the landscape visible from afar, like a huge mountain, imparts extraordinary grandeur to the image. The same impression is facilitated by the contrast of the heightened plastic tactility of the figure and its smooth, generalized silhouette with a vision-like landscape stretching into the foggy distance with bizarre rocks and water channels winding among them.”

The portrait of Gioconda is one of the best examples of the portrait genre of the Italian High Renaissance.

Boris Vipper writes that, despite traces of the Quattrocento, “with her clothes with a small cutout on the chest and with sleeves in loose folds, just like her straight pose, slight turn of the body and soft gesture of the hands, Mona Lisa belongs entirely to the era classic style" Mikhail Alpatov points out that “Gioconda is perfectly inscribed in a strictly proportional rectangle, her half-figure forms something whole, her folded hands give her image completeness. Now, of course, there could be no question of the fanciful curls of the early “Annunciation.” However, no matter how softened all the contours are, the wavy strand of Mona Lisa’s hair is in tune with the transparent veil, and the hanging fabric thrown over her shoulder finds an echo in the smooth windings of the distant road. In all this, Leonardo demonstrates his ability to create according to the laws of rhythm and harmony.”

“Mona Lisa” became very dark, which is considered the result of its author’s inherent tendency to experiment with paints, due to which the fresco “ last supper“In general, she practically died. The artist's contemporaries, however, managed to express their admiration not only for the composition, design and play of chiaroscuro - but also for the color of the work. It is assumed, for example, that the sleeves of her dress may have originally been red - as can be seen from the copy of the painting from the Prado.

The current condition of the painting is quite poor, which is why the Louvre staff announced that they would no longer give it to exhibitions: “Cracks have formed in the painting, and one of them stops a few millimeters above the head of the Mona Lisa.”

Macro photography allows you to see a large number of craquelures (cracks) on the surface of the painting

As Dzhivelegov notes, by the time of the creation of the Mona Lisa, Leonardo’s mastery “had already entered a phase of such maturity, when all formal tasks of a compositional and other nature were posed and solved, when Leonardo began to think that only the last, most difficult tasks artistic technique deserve to be addressed. And when he found a model in the person of Mona Lisa that satisfied his needs, he tried to solve some of the highest and most difficult problems of painting technique that he had not yet solved. He wanted, with the help of techniques that he had already developed and tested before, especially with the help of his famous sfumato, which had previously given extraordinary effects, to do more than he had done before: to create a living face of a living person and so reproduce the features and expression of this face so that with them the inner world of man was fully revealed.”

Boris Vipper asks the question “by what means was this spirituality achieved, this undying spark of consciousness in the image of the Mona Lisa, then two main means should be named. One is Leonard's wonderful sfumato. No wonder Leonardo liked to say that “modeling is the soul of painting.” It is sfumato that creates Gioconda’s moist gaze, her smile as light as the wind, and the incomparable caressing softness of the touch of her hands.” Sfumato is a subtle haze that envelops the face and figure, softening contours and shadows. For this purpose, Leonardo recommended placing, as he puts it, “a kind of fog” between the light source and the bodies.

Rothenberg writes that “Leonardo managed to introduce into his creation that degree of generalization that allows him to be considered as an image of the Renaissance man as a whole. This high degree of generalization is reflected in all elements figurative language the painting, in its individual motifs - in how a light, transparent veil, covering the head and shoulders of Mona Lisa, unites carefully drawn strands of hair and small folds of the dress into an overall smooth outline; it is palpable in the incomparable softness of the modeling of the face (from which, according to the fashion of that time, eyebrows were removed) and beautiful, sleek hands.”

Landscape behind the Mona Lisa

Alpatov adds that “in the softly melting haze enveloping the face and figure, Leonardo managed to make one feel the limitless variability of human facial expressions. Although Gioconda's eyes look attentively and calmly at the viewer, thanks to the shading of her eye sockets, one might think that they are frowning slightly; her lips are compressed, but near their corners there are subtle shadows that make you believe that every minute they will open, smile, and speak. The very contrast between her gaze and the half-smile on her lips gives the idea of ​​the inconsistency of her experiences. (...) Leonardo worked on it for several years, ensuring that not a single sharp stroke, not a single angular outline remained in the picture; and although the edges of objects in it are clearly perceptible, they all dissolve in the subtlest transitions from half-shadows to half-lights.”

Art critics emphasize the organic way with which the artist combined the portrait characterization of a person with a landscape full of a special mood, and how much this increased the dignity of the portrait

An early copy of the Mona Lisa from the Prado demonstrates how much a portrait image loses when placed against a dark, neutral background.

Whipper considers landscape to be the second medium that creates the spirituality of a painting: “The second medium is the relationship between figure and background. The fantastic, rocky landscape, as if seen through sea water, in the portrait of Mona Lisa has some other reality than her figure itself. The Mona Lisa has the reality of life, the landscape has the reality of a dream. Thanks to this contrast, Mona Lisa seems so incredibly close and tangible, and we perceive the landscape as the radiation of her own dreams.”

Renaissance art researcher Viktor Grashchenkov writes that Leonardo, including thanks to the landscape, managed to create not a portrait of a specific person, but a universal image: “In this mysterious picture he created something more than a portrait of the unknown Florentine Mona Lisa, the third wife of Francesco del Giocondo. The appearance and mental structure of a particular person are conveyed by him with unprecedented syntheticity. This impersonal psychologism corresponds to the cosmic abstraction of the landscape, almost completely devoid of any signs of human presence. In smoky chiaroscuro, not only all the outlines of the figure and landscape and all the color tones are softened. In the subtle transitions from light to shadow, almost imperceptible to the eye, in the vibration of Leonard’s “sfumato”, all definiteness of individuality and its psychological state. (…) “La Gioconda” is not a portrait. This is a visible symbol of the very life of man and nature, united into one whole and presented abstractly from its individual concrete form. But behind the barely noticeable movement, which, like light ripples, runs across the motionless surface of this harmonious world, one can discern all the richness of the possibilities of physical and spiritual existence.”

In 2012, a copy of the “Mona Lisa” from the Prado was cleared, and under the later recordings there was a landscape background - the feeling of the canvas immediately changes.

“Mona Lisa” is designed in golden brown and reddish tones in the foreground and emerald green tones in the background. “Transparent, like glass, the colors form an alloy, as if created not by the hand of a person, but by that internal force of matter, which gives birth to crystals of perfect shape from a solution.” Like many of Leonardo's works, this work has darkened over time, and its color relationships have changed somewhat, but even now the thoughtful comparisons in the tones of carnation and clothing and their general contrast with the bluish-green, “underwater” tone of the landscape are clearly perceived.

Leonardo's earlier female portrait "Lady with an Ermine", although wonderful work art, but in its simpler figurative structure belongs to a previous era.

"Mona Lisa" is considered one of best works in the genre of portraiture, which influenced the works of the High Renaissance and, indirectly through them, all subsequent development of the genre, which “must always return to La Gioconda as an unattainable, but obligatory model.”

Art historians note that the portrait of Mona Lisa was a decisive step towards the development of the Renaissance portrait art. Rotenberg writes: “although the Quattrocento painters left a number of significant works of this genre, their achievements in portraiture were, so to speak, disproportionate to the achievements in the main painting genres - in compositions on religious and mythological themes. The inequality of the portrait genre was already reflected in the very “iconography” of portrait images. The actual portrait works of the 15th century, with all their undeniable physiognomic similarity and the feeling they emit inner strength They were also distinguished by external and internal constraint. All that wealth human feelings and experiences that characterize the biblical and mythological images of 15th-century painters were usually not the property of their portrait works. Echoes of this can be seen in earlier portraits of Leonardo himself, created by him in the first years of his stay in Milan. (...) In comparison, the portrait of Mona Lisa is perceived as the result of a gigantic qualitative shift. For the first time, the portrait image in its significance became on a par with the most striking images of other pictorial genres.”

“Portrait of a Lady” by Lorenzo Costa was painted in the years 1500-06 - approximately the same years as the “Mona Lisa”, but in comparison it shows amazing inertia.

Lazarev agrees with him: “There is hardly any other picture in the world about which art critics would write such an abyss of nonsense as this famous work by Leonardo. (...) If Lisa di Antonio Maria di Noldo Gherardini, the virtuous matron and wife of one of the most respected Florentine citizens, heard all this, she would, no doubt, be sincerely surprised. And Leonardo would have been even more surprised, having set himself here a much more modest and, at the same time, much more difficult task - to give such an image human face, which would finally dissolve in itself the last vestiges of Quattrocentist statics and psychological immobility. (...) And that’s why he was right a thousand times art critic, who pointed out the futility of deciphering this smile. Its essence lies in the fact that here one of the first Italian art attempts to portray the natural mental condition for its own sake, as an end in itself, without any additional religious and ethical motivations. Thus, Leonardo managed to revive his model so much that in comparison with it, all the older portraits seem like frozen mummies.”

Raphael, "Girl with a Unicorn", c. 1505-1506, Galleria Borghese, Rome. This portrait, painted under the influence of the Mona Lisa, is built according to the same iconographic scheme - with a balcony (also with columns) and a landscape.

In his innovative work, Leonardo transferred the main center of gravity to the face of the portrait. At the same time he used his hands as a powerful tool psychological characteristics. By making the portrait generational in format, the artist was able to demonstrate a wider range of artistic techniques. And the most important thing in the figurative structure of a portrait is the subordination of all details to the guiding idea. “The head and hands are the undoubted center of the picture, to which the rest of its elements are sacrificed. The fabulous landscape seems to shine through the sea waters, it seems so distant and intangible. Its main goal is not to distract the viewer's attention from the face. And the same role is intended to be performed by the garment, which falls into the smallest folds. Leonardo deliberately avoids heavy draperies, which could obscure the expressiveness of his hands and face. Thus, he forces the latter to perform with special force, the greater the more modest and neutral the landscape and attire, likened to a quiet, barely noticeable accompaniment.”

Leonardo's students and followers created numerous replicas of the Mona Lisa. Some of them (from the Vernon collection, USA; from the Walter collection, Baltimore, USA; and also for some time the Isleworth Mona Lisa, Switzerland) are considered authentic by their owners, and the painting in the Louvre is considered a copy. There is also the “nude Mona Lisa” iconography, presented in several versions (“Beautiful Gabrielle”, “Monna Vanna”, the Hermitage “Donna Nuda”), apparently made by the artist’s own students. A large number of them gave rise to an unprovable version that there was a version of the nude Mona Lisa, painted by the master himself.

“Donna Nuda” (that is, “Naked Donna”). Unknown artist, late 16th century, Hermitage

Reputation of the painting

"Mona Lisa" behind bulletproof glass in the Louvre and museum visitors crowding nearby

Despite the fact that the Mona Lisa was highly appreciated by the artist’s contemporaries, its fame later faded. The picture was not particularly remembered until mid-19th century, when artists close to the Symbolist movement began to praise her, associating her with their ideas regarding female mystique. Critic Walter Pater expressed his opinion in his 1867 essay on da Vinci, describing the figure in the painting as a kind of mythical embodiment of the eternal feminine, who is "older than the rocks between which she sits" and who has "died many times and learned the secrets of the afterlife." .

The further rise of the painting’s fame is associated with its mysterious disappearance at the beginning of the 20th century and a happy return to the museum several years later (see below, section Theft), thanks to which she did not leave the pages of newspapers.

A contemporary of her adventure, critic Abram Efros wrote: “... the museum guard, who now does not leave a single step from the painting, since its return to the Louvre after the abduction in 1911, is guarding not a portrait of Francesca del Giocondo’s wife, but an image of some half-human, half-snake a creature, either smiling or gloomy, dominating the cold, bare, rocky space spread out behind him.”

"Mona Lisa" today is one of the most famous paintings Western European art. Its resounding reputation is associated not only with its high artistic merits, but also with the atmosphere of mystery surrounding this work.

One of the mysteries is related to the deep affection that the author felt for this work. Various explanations were offered, for example, a romantic one: Leonardo fell in love with Mona Lisa and deliberately delayed work in order to stay longer with her, and she teased him with her mysterious smile and brought him to the greatest creative ecstasies. This version is considered simply speculation. Dzhivelegov believes that this attachment is due to the fact that he found in her the point of application of many of his creative quests(see Technique section).

Smile of Gioconda

Leonardo da Vinci. "John the Baptist". 1513-1516, Louvre. This picture also has its own mystery: why is John the Baptist smiling and pointing upward?

Leonardo da Vinci. "Saint Anne with the Madonna and Child Christ" (fragment), c. 1510, Louvre.
Mona Lisa's smile is one of the most famous riddles paintings. This slight wandering smile is found in many works by both the master himself and the Leonardesques, but it was in the Mona Lisa that it reached its perfection.

The viewer is especially fascinated by the demonic charm of this smile. Hundreds of poets and writers have written about this woman, who seems to be either smiling seductively or frozen, looking coldly and soullessly into space, and no one unraveled her smile, no one interpreted her thoughts. Everything, even the landscape, is mysterious, like a dream, tremulous, like a pre-storm haze of sensuality (Muter).

Grashchenkov writes: “The endless variety of human feelings and desires, opposing passions and thoughts, smoothed out and fused together, resonates in the harmoniously dispassionate appearance of Gioconda only with the uncertainty of her smile, barely emerging and disappearing. This meaningless fleeting movement of the corners of her mouth, like a distant echo merged into one sound, brings to us from the boundless distance the colorful polyphony of a person’s spiritual life.”
Art critic Rotenberg believes that “there are few portraits in all of world art that are equal to the Mona Lisa in terms of the power of expression of the human personality, embodied in the unity of character and intellect. It is the extraordinary intellectual charge of Leonardo's portrait that distinguishes it from the portrait images of the Quattrocento. This feature of his is perceived all the more acutely because it relates to portrait of a woman, in which the character of the model was previously revealed in a completely different, predominantly lyrical, figurative tonality. The feeling of strength emanating from the “Mona Lisa” is an organic combination of internal composure and a sense of personal freedom, the spiritual harmony of a person based on his consciousness of his own significance. And her smile itself does not at all express superiority or disdain; it is perceived as the result of calm self-confidence and complete self-control.”

Boris Vipper points out that the above-mentioned lack of eyebrows and shaved forehead perhaps involuntarily enhances the strange mystery in her facial expression. He further writes about the power of the painting: “If we ask ourselves what is the great attractive force“Mona Lisa”, its truly incomparable hypnotic effect, then there can only be one answer - in its spirituality. The most ingenious and the most opposite interpretations were put into the smile of “La Gioconda”. They wanted to read pride and tenderness, sensuality and coquetry, cruelty and modesty in it. The mistake was, firstly, in the fact that they were looking for individual, subjective spiritual properties at all costs in the image of the Mona Lisa, while there is no doubt that Leonardo was striving for typical spirituality. Secondly, and this is perhaps even more important, they tried to attribute emotional content to the spirituality of Mona Lisa, whereas in fact it has intellectual roots. The miracle of the Mona Lisa lies precisely in the fact that she thinks; that, standing in front of a yellowed, cracked board, we irresistibly sense the presence of a being endowed with intelligence, a being with whom we can talk and from whom we can expect an answer.”

Lazarev analyzed it as an art scientist: “This smile is not so much an individual feature of Mona Lisa, but a typical formula for psychological revitalization, a formula that runs like a red thread through all of Leonardo’s youthful images, a formula that later turned, in the hands of his students and followers, into traditional stamp. Like the proportions of Leonard's figures, it is built on the finest mathematical measurements, on strict consideration of the expressive values ​​of individual parts of the face. And for all that, this smile is absolutely natural, and this is precisely the power of its charm. It takes away everything hard, tense, and frozen from the face; it turns it into a mirror of vague, indefinite spiritual experiences; in its elusive lightness it can only be compared to a ripple running through water.”

Her analysis attracted the attention of not only art historians, but also psychologists. Sigmund Freud writes: “Whoever imagines Leonardo’s paintings is reminded of a strange, captivating and mysterious smile hidden on his lips female images. The smile frozen on his elongated, tremulous lips became characteristic of him and is most often called “Leonardian.” In the peculiarly beautiful appearance of the Florentine Mona Lisa del Gioconda, she most captivates and plunges the viewer into confusion. This smile required one interpretation, but found a variety of interpretations, none of which satisfied. (...) The guess that two different elements were combined in Mona Lisa’s smile was born among many critics. Therefore, in the facial expression of the beautiful Florentine, they saw the most perfect image of the antagonism that rules a woman’s love life, restraint and seduction, sacrificial tenderness and recklessly demanding sensuality that absorbs a man as something extraneous. (...) Leonardo, in the person of Mona Lisa, managed to reproduce the double meaning of her smile, the promise of boundless tenderness and ominous threat.”


The philosopher A.F. Losev writes sharply negatively about her: ... “Mona Lisa” with her “demonic smile.” “After all, one has only to look closely at Gioconda’s eyes and one can easily notice that she, in fact, does not smile at all. This is not a smile, but a predatory face with cold eyes and a clear knowledge of the helplessness of the victim whom Gioconda wants to take possession of and in which, in addition to weakness, she also counts on powerlessness in the face of the bad feeling that has taken possession of her.”

The discoverer of the term microexpression, psychologist Paul Ekman (the prototype of Dr. Cal Lightman from the television series Lie to Me), writes about the facial expression of Mona Lisa, analyzing it from the point of view of his knowledge of human facial expressions: “the other two types [of smiles] combine a sincere smile with a characteristic expression in the eyes. A flirting smile, although at the same time the seducer averts his eyes away from the object of his interest, in order to then again cast a sly glance at him, which, again, is instantly averted as soon as it is noticed. The unusualness of the impression famous Mona Lisa partly lies in the fact that Leonardo catches his nature precisely at the moment of this playful movement; turning her head in one direction, she looks in the other - at the object of her interest. In life, this facial expression is fleeting - a furtive glance lasts no more than a moment.”

History of the painting in modern times

At the time of his death in 1525, Leonardo's assistant (and possibly lover) named Salai was in possession, according to references in his personal papers, of a portrait of a woman entitled "La Gioconda" (quadro de una dona aretata), which had been bequeathed to him by his teacher. Salai left the painting to his sisters who lived in Milan. It remains a mystery how, in this case, the portrait got from Milan back to France. It is also unknown who and when exactly trimmed the edges of the painting with columns, which, according to most researchers, based on comparison with other portraits, existed in the original version. Unlike another cropped work by Leonardo - "Portrait of Ginevra Benci", the lower part of which was cropped because it was damaged by water or fire, in in this case The reasons were most likely of a compositional nature. There is a version that Leonardo da Vinci himself did it.


Crowd in the Louvre near the painting, our days

King Francis I is believed to have bought the painting from Salai's heirs (for 4,000 ecus) and kept it in his castle of Fontainebleau, where it remained until the time of Louis XIV. The latter transported her to the Palace of Versailles, and after the French Revolution she ended up in the Louvre. Napoleon hung the portrait in his bedroom at the Tuileries Palace, then it returned to the museum.

Theft

1911 Empty wall where the Mona Lisa hung
The Mona Lisa would have been known for a long time only subtle connoisseurs visual arts, if not for her exceptional story, which ensured her worldwide fame.

Vincenzo Perugia. Leaf from a criminal case.

On August 21, 1911, the painting was stolen by a Louvre employee. Italian master on the mirrors of Vincenzo Peruggia (Italian: Vincenzo Peruggia). The purpose of this abduction is not clear. Perhaps Perugia wanted to return La Gioconda to its historical homeland, believing that the French had “kidnapped” it and forgetting that Leonardo himself brought the painting to France. The police search was unsuccessful. The country's borders were closed, the museum administration was fired. The poet Guillaume Apollinaire was arrested on suspicion of committing a crime and later released. Pablo Picasso was also under suspicion. The painting was found only two years later in Italy. Moreover, the culprit was the thief himself, who responded to an advertisement in the newspaper and offered to sell La Gioconda to the director of the Uffizi Gallery. It is assumed that he intended to make copies and pass them off as the original. Perugia, on the one hand, was praised for Italian patriotism, on the other hand, he was given a short term in prison.

Finally, on January 4, 1914, the painting (after exhibitions in Italian cities) returned to Paris. During this time, the Mona Lisa remained on the covers of newspapers and magazines around the world, as well as postcards, so it is not surprising that the Mona Lisa was copied more often than any other painting. The painting became an object of worship as a masterpiece of world classics.

Vandalism

In 1956, the lower part of the painting was damaged when a visitor threw acid on it. On December 30 of the same year, a young Bolivian, Hugo Ungaza Villegas, threw a stone at her and damaged the paint layer at her elbow (the loss was later recorded). After this, the Mona Lisa was protected with bulletproof glass, which protected it from further serious attacks. Still, in April 1974, a woman, upset by the museum’s policy towards the disabled, tried to spray red paint from a can while the painting was on display in Tokyo, and on April 2, 2009, a Russian woman, who had not received French citizenship, threw a clay cup at the glass. Both of these cases did not harm the picture.

During World War II, for safety reasons, the painting was transported from the Louvre to the Castle of Amboise (the place of Leonardo's death and burial), then to Loc-Dieu Abbey, and finally to the Ingres Museum in Montauban, from where it was safely returned to its place after the victory.

In the twentieth century, the painting almost never left the Louvre, visiting the USA in 1963 and Japan in 1974. On the way from Japan to France, the painting was exhibited at the Museum. A. S. Pushkin in Moscow. The trips only cemented the success and fame of the film.