Although it’s “the most famous painting in the world” nowadays, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa hasn’t always had this reputation. When the Louvre museum opened in 1793, the work wasn’t on display. It’s only five years later that it appeared in the inventory of the collections.
Before, the painting was kept at the Palace of Versailles with other frames of the royal collections but it didn’t have a particular place. It wasn’t even visible ! At the time, it was considered a nice Italian painting. It wasn’t until 1804 that it took its place in the Grande Galerie of the Louvre.
That’s when artists and visitors started to look at it, copy it, photograph it, making it gradually known throughout France and around the world. It’s the theft of 1911 and the rediscovery of the work three years later that triggered a craze for this mysterious woman who attracts millions of visitors to the Louvre museum every year.
