Which French king bought the Mona Lisa after Leonardo's death?

Francis I of France acquired the Mona Lisa after Leonardo da Vinci’s death. Leonardo entered Francis’s service in France in 1516 and brought several paintings with him, including the portrait now known as the Mona Lisa.

Leonardo died at the Château du Clos Lucé near Amboise on 2 May 1519. After his death, Francis I obtained the painting, and it entered the French royal collection. The work later passed through royal residences before becoming part of the collections displayed by the French state. It has been associated with the Louvre in Paris since the museum’s early public era and is now one of its best-known paintings.

A common misconception is that Leonardo sold the finished portrait to the Giocondo family, whose member Lisa Gherardini is the traditional identification of the sitter. The evidence instead indicates that he kept working on the painting and retained it until his move to France. The painting’s fame grew dramatically after Vincenzo Peruggia stole it from the Louvre in 1911; its recovery in 1913 generated worldwide publicity. Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Henry II were French kings, but Francis I is the canonical answer.