Mona Lisa

The Mona Lisa, painted by Leonardo da Vinci between 1503 and 1519, is the world's most famous, most visited, most written about, and most parodied work of art. It now hangs in the Louvre in Paris, where it attracts an estimated 6 million visitors annually. The painting depicts a woman with an enigmatic smile against a hazy landscape. The subject is generally believed to be Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo (hence the Italian name "La Gioconda"). The painting's fame owes much to its theft in 1911 by Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian handyman who walked out of the Louvre with the painting hidden under his coat. The two-year mystery — and subsequent recovery — made it an international sensation. The Mona Lisa's technical innovations were revolutionary: sfumato (blurring outlines to create atmospheric depth), the three-quarter pose (then novel), and the lifelike quality of the subject's gaze, which seems to follow viewers, were all groundbreaking.