Who painted the Mona Lisa, the famous portrait displayed in the Louvre?
Answer
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa, the famous portrait displayed in the Louvre.
Leonardo is believed to have begun the painting around 1503 and continued working on it for years. The portrait is usually identified as Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo, which explains the Italian title La Gioconda.
The painting is renowned for Leonardo’s subtle use of sfumato, a technique that softens transitions between tones and creates the sitter’s famously ambiguous expression. The Mona Lisa is painted in oil on a poplar panel and is relatively small, measuring about 77 by 53 centimetres. It became especially famous after being stolen from the Louvre in 1911 and recovered in 1913.