Mona Lisa | |
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Italian: La Gioconda, French: La Joconde | |
Artist | Leonardo da Vinci |
Year | c. 1503–06, perhaps continuing until c. 1517 |
Type | Oil |
Medium | Populus |
Subject | Possibly Lisa Gherardini |
Dimensions | 77 cm × 53 cm (30 in × 21 in) |
Location | Musée du Louvre, Paris |
Leonardo's "Mona Lisa", Smarthistory |
The Mona Lisa (/ˌmoʊnə ˈliːsə/; Italian: Monna Lisa [ˈmɔnna ˈliːza] or La Gioconda [la dʒoˈkonda], French: La Joconde [la ʒɔkɔ̃d]) is a half-length portrait of Lisa Gherardini by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, which has been described 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 painting is a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, and is in oil on a white Lombardy poplar panel, and is believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506. Leonardo may have continued working on it as late as 1517. It was acquired by King Francis I of France and is now the property of the French Republic, on permanent display at the Louvre Museum in Paris since 1797.