“Unlocking the Enigma: Discover the Hidden Mysteries Behind the Mona Lisa’s Smile”
Da Vinci was famously a perfectionist and procrastinator, and as such he continued to retouch his painting until 1513. As to why da Vinci never delivered it to the person who commissioned the painting, it has been speculated that he received a much more lucrative commission shortly thereafter and thus abandoned the painting at the time. Another hypothesis is that he perhaps made two versions of the painting, keeping one and delivering the other. More on this two Mona Lisa paintings thing later.
Whatever the case, it was still in Leonardo’s hands in 1517 when King Francis I of France invited him to live at the castle of Cloux, near Amboise, central France. This is where the Italian artist died of a stroke on May 2, 1519. Historical records of the time offer two versions, equally reliable, of what happened to his beloved masterpiece afterwards.
According to one version, Leonardo sold the Mona Lisa to King Francis, to the tune of 4,000 golden écus and it went on display at the castle of Cloux. Indeed, one Antonio de Beatis, secretary to a cardinal, reported seeing the Mona Lisa at Cloux on October 10, 1517. However, a 1525 notarial document mentions that the painting had been inherited by Gian Giacomo Caprotti, known as Salaí, Leonardo’s favourite apprentice, assistant and alleged lover.
This discrepancy in accounts points to the possible existence of potentially two contemporary versions of the Mona Lisa once again. Again, we’ll explore this conundrum later.
In any case, by the 17th Century the Mona Lisa we know and love today was in the hands of the French Crown. In 1630, King Louis XIII considered selling it to King Charles I of England, but Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens convinced him to sell another painting instead. In 1665 the Mona Lisa was first hung at the Louvre, back then the Royal Palace in Paris, but was soon moved to Versailles, for Louis XIV to admire it in his private gallery.
