According to the French minister Francoise Nyssen, the Mona Lisa will be able to leave the Louvre, housed in other rooms of other museums. Meanwhile, the first candidate to host the famous Mona Lisa was the mayor of Lens, Sylvain Robert, who made a direct request to the President of the Republic. Prime candidate to host Leonardo's masterpiece, the Louvre branch in Lens, northern France.
Speaking to Europe 1, the minister confirmed an intention already hinted at at the beginning of the year: “I don't see why certain things should certainly remain confined, then, attention must be paid to conservation and to what certain works represent. But my goal has always been the fight against cultural segregation. And for this reason, one of the pillars remains the plan of the itinerant works".
While the opinion of conservatives and experts who have not yet made any statement on the matter remains confidential.
Who knows if the Louvre in Abu Dhabi might not be among the next trips?
But who is the lady, true keeper of a thousand secrets?
An entire wall of the Louvre is reserved for the Mona Lisa, where a thick glass plate protects her from the weather and from the gazes of the visitors who cross hers by the thousands. There are many scholars who have tried to understand her facial features; many interpretations – without understanding. Her charm and mysterious smile enchant her. A smile that finds several versions, depending on how you look at it.
In Paris the Mona Lisa is something of a national monument, no wonder it attracts as many visitors as the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame.
Critics consider the painting to be Leonardo Da Vinci's masterpiece, and even if there are hundreds of important paintings in the Louvre, it is to her, the Mona Lisa, that we bow down; poems, operas and novels have been dedicated to her.
It is a painting executed on a poplar panel, where an extremely thin layer of pigment has been applied with great skill. The colors were superimposed by veils so thin that the hard white base coat – with which the table was prepared -, transpired giving the whole an extraordinary luminosity. The framework of paintings measures just - 76 centimeters by 53 centimeters - and was created by Leonardo in Florence over 500 years ago.
Much of the painting's magic lies in the way the hands, resting one on the other, lead the gaze around the figure, while the slightly turned head and eyes bring it back to the hands. The shades of light and shadow that create form and volume, together with the composition and style of the painting, marked a new stage in the history of painting.
The absence of jewels and the hair falling straight to the shoulders were also a bold innovation, which opened the eyes of most painters to the possibilities of painting simple beauties – of low social status.
However, the famous and slightly ironic smile was not new. In fact, it was already present on the faces of Gothic statues at Rheims and other cathedrals. We may never know who the Mona Lisa was.
According to popular tradition, it is thought to have been Lisa Gherardini, who married a modest Florentine citizen named Francesco Zanini del Giocondo (from where the name Gioconda derives); she seems she was not yet thirty when from 1503 to 1507 she posed for the portrait.
It is also said that to keep the smile on her face, during the four years of posing, Leonardo brought musicians and storytellers. Other authoritative historians argue that it was not Lisa who posed. It is certain that for over a century this work was listed in the royal inventory of the French court as The Veiled Courtesan.
Some indications lead us to believe that the model of the portrait was Giuliano de Medici's lover, Costanza d'Avalos.
Another candidate as a possible model seems to be the Marchesa Isabella d'Este, of whom we only know that she had great admiration for Leonardo; but that he cherished the portrait of the Mona Lisa is proved by the fact that it was the only one of his paintings that he brought with him, when disgusted by life in Italy he went to settle in France: where King Francis managed to buy him the portrait.
After the rulers of France, the only person who for a certain period was in possession of the real Mona Lisa was an Italian bricklayer, Vincenzo Peruggia (with two Gs, of course!). Which Peruggia, on a summer day in 1911, together with a team of painters detached the Mona Lisa from the wall, removed the frame and wrapped the painting in his overalls as he went out through the side door of the museum.
When the theft was discovered, the police questioned all the people who had worked at the museum and searched their homes, including Peruggia, but found nothing.
For two years the "lady" was hidden in a suitcase under Peruggia's bed, who occasionally took the painting and admired it. Until in 1913 a Florentine art dealer, Alfredo Geri, received a letter offering him the Mona Lisa; on the envelope was the postmark of Paris with the sender's address: Bureau de Poste n. 6, Place de la République.
At first it was thought that it was the joke of a madman, then the Florentine merchant decided to invite Peruggia to Florence. The meeting took place in the presence of an official of the Uffizi Gallery and in front of him Vincenzo argued that his aim was to return the painting to Italy; but he wanted 500.000 francs in gold, of course he was arrested and the painting returned to the Louvre.
Mona Lisa traveled often over the following years, we remember when in 1963 she crossed the Atlantic to go to the inauguration of the National Gallery in Washington, where she showed herself to visitors in the presence of President Kennedy.
Historian Jules Michelet said of the Mona Lisa: "This painting calls me, it absorbs me, it takes possession of me and I am attracted to it in spite of myself". Observing Mona Lisa, it almost seems as if she invites us to play with her to discover other secrets – which will never reveal. Perhaps due to a pact with Leonardo, who loved her with the respect of one who knows full well that he will never be betrayed.
