Mona Lisa - Paris as seen with my own eyes (4)

During my visit to Paris I visited the Mona Lisa in the Louvre Museum.

I saw it in the wide , very crowded hall almost all the people are watching it.  

The hall of  Mona Lisa
I added a red circle around  Mona Lisa 

Other names 

La Gioconda or La Joconde.

It is a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo) is a half-length portrait of a woman by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci, which has been acclaimed as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world."

The origin of the name: In Italian, ma donna means my lady. This became madonna, and its contraction mona. Mona was thus a polite form of address, similar to Ma’am,Madam, or my lady in English.

Lisa  is her name.

The painting, thought to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, is in oil on apoplar panel, and is believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506. It was acquired by KingFrancis I of France and is now the property of the French Republic, on permanent display at the Musée du Louvre in Paris

Leonardo da Vinci Self-portrait

Leonardo da Vinci began painting the Mona Lisa in 1503 or 1504 in Florence, Italy .

After he had lingered over it four years, left it unfinished 

Leonardo, later in his life, is said to have regretted "never having completed a single work" .

In 1516 Leonardo was invited by King François I to work at the Clos Lucé near the king's castle in Amboise. It is believed that he took the Mona Lisa with him and continued to work after he moved to France. On his death the painting was inherited, among other works, by his pupil and assistant .

The king bought the painting for 4,000 écus and kept it at Palace of Fontainebleau, where it remained until given to Louis XIV. Louis XIV moved the painting to the Palace of Versailles. After the French Revolution, it was moved to the Louvre, but spent a brief period in the bedroom of Napoleon in the Tuileries Palace. 

I hope you liked the post 

Thanks a lot 

MR