#40 - The Mystery of the Mona Lisa

A woman with an enigmatic smile. She has been celebrated in songs, poetry and pop art. She is mysterious, some say she is a siren who casts a spell on those who look at her. She does not move. She does not speak. And yet she is a global icon.

Discover the fascinating history of the Mona Lisa as we explore the creation of the painting, its journey through history, and why it remains one of the most famous paintings in the world.

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Podcast 40: The mystery of the Mona Lisa

Janine: Bonjour and welcome The Good Life France podcast. I’m your host Janine Marsh, I’m a British writer and I’m the editor of The Good Life France Magazine and website. My home is in the far north of France, Pas-de-Calais and I live in an old farmhouse which I’ve been renovating for 20 years and it’s almost finished! When I’m not writing, renovating or looking after my 52 animals - 4 dogs, 7 cats, chickens ducks, and geese, I travel year-round exploring French destinations, history, culture, art and gastronomy, I love to share my discoveries with you alongside my podcast partner Olivier Jauffrit.

Oli: Bonjour mes amis and amies, hello from Lyon where I am based, the sunny bit of France! When I am not chatting to you here on the podcast, I have a radio show, Paris Chanson, I do voiceovers and I’m a radio presenter. My British accent, acquired after 20 years of living in the UK is good non?! So that’s us – now let’s get going on today’s topic Janine - tell us what are we going to explore today?

Janine: We’re going to discover the fascinating history of a global icon. A woman with an enigmatic smile. She has been celebrated in songs, poetry and pop art. She is mysterious, some say she is a siren who casts a spell on those who look at her. She does not move. She does not speak. She is in fact a painting. I am talking about The Mona Lisa!

Oli: Ah she is a very famous lady indeed! Let’s dive into the world of the Mona Lisa, a masterpiece that has captivated audiences for centuries. Join us as we explore the creation of the painting, its journey through history, and why it remains one of the most famous paintings in the world.

Oli: In France the Mona Lisa is known as La Joconde. She has one of the most famous faces the world has ever known despite being more than 500 years old. Her likeness hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris and each year millions queue to see her face behind its thick bullet proof glass.

Janine: I saw the Mona Lisa when I was a teenager and like you say – she is behind thick glass. Then the glass was sort of green coloured which kind of spoiled the experience, but now there is a better glass screen, more clear. The glass helps to conserve the painting, controlling humidity and temperature but she’s also been a bit of a target over the years, and the glass was added in 1956 when someone threw a rock at the painting and damaged Mona Lisa’s elbow. Since then she’s had several things thrown at her including cake, acid and a tea cup – a bit random! Luckily she is a survivor. I have to say I was surprised at how small the painting is – a half-length portrait, but it’s so famous, arguably the most famous painting in the world and I sort of expected it to be larger than life! So in this episode we’re going to find out – who was Lisa? Who created her, and why is she so famous? It’s not just about the extraordinary quality of the painting and who painted her, it’s also about the history of the painting, more than anything that brings it to life for me.

Oli: She might be one of the most famous faces in the world, but strangely there’s lots we don’t know about the painting. We don’t know exactly when she was painted. And we don’t know that much about the real woman at all beyond her name.

Janine: The Mona Lisa was created by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci, one of the most brilliant minds of the Renaissance. He began the painting in Italy, it’s thought around 1503. And he finished it in France when he was invited to live there in 1516 under the patronage of the French King Francis I who offered him the gorgeous Chateau du Clos Lucé in Amboise as his home, just down the road from the King’s castle. Actually there was an underground passage linking the two castles and it’s said that the two would meet in private via the passage. Leonardo, who was by no means wealthy, in fact he was pretty much broke at the time, was thrilled to go to France. And we’ll do a whole episode about this incredible man another time by the way because there’s a lot to say about him! He actually travelled to France by donkey across the snowy alps, taking the Mona Lisa painting with him. It’s believed by historians that he continued to work on his masterpiece in his new home in Amboise, though apparently he himself considered it unfinished when he died in 1519.

Oli: The Mona Lisa – that’s what English speakers call her – well her real name is Lisa Gherardini. Why Mona Lisa? It’s a name that was started in the 1800s and Mona is an Italian form of address almost like Mistress or Mrs – it comes from ma donna – my lady. Mrs Lisa really doesn’t sound the same does it?

Janine: Mrs Lisa?! Definitely doesn’t sound right! Imagine that on the plaque on the wall next to it.

Oli: So what do we know about her? She was the wife of a wealthy Florentine silk merchant named Francesco del Giocondo – hence the title, La Gioconda in Italian, La Joconde, spelled J – O – C – O – N – D – E in French. La Gioconda might also be a play on words – giocondo is like jovial, happy, playful. And she does have that playful smile! 16th century artist Giorgio Vasari described this now iconic expression, stating: “the smile was so pleasing that it seemed divine rather than human”.

Janine: Although no one can be 100% sure, it’s believed that her husband, whom she married aged 15, commissioned the painting to celebrate the birth of their second son. She was thought to be 24 at the time.

Oli: More than that, not much is known at all, there are theories, guesses and though historians are fairly certain that they have the some of the facts right, no one knows for absolutely sure. There are also some random claims – that Leonardo was in love with her or she with him and that’s why she’s smiling – but there’s no proof whatsoever – fake news most likely!

Janine: Many who saw the Mona Lisa feel head over heels for her. Even in Leonardo da Vinci’s lifetime she was admired, and other artists were inspired by it, copied and imitated the painting. Francis I bought the painting in 1518 and adored it. He took it with him to another of his chateaux – Fontainebleau, where he hung it in his bathroom. It seems strange to us but in those days bathrooms were thought to be creative spaces! Louis XIV took the painting to Versailles. His successor Louis XV hated it and had it taken away and she ended up in a warehouse for a while. Napoleon hung the painting on his bedroom wall at the Tuileries palace. I like to think of him laying there trying to get to sleep, thinking who is this woman with the sweet smile!

Oli: That smile has fascinated people for centuries. in 2000, Harvard neuroscientist Dr. Margaret Livingstone applied a scientific method to why the Mona Lisa’s smile seems to shift and she says it’s all about where your focus is and how your brain responds.

Janine: In 1804, the Mona Lisa was placed on a wall in the Louvre, which was a royal palace but after the French Revolution became a museum – and we’ll be doing a Louvre podcast soon. Well in those early days she didn’t get that much attention but she was quite popular. By that time she was seen as a sort of femme fatale and rather exotic. Oscar Wilde said: "the picture becomes more wonderful to us than it really is, and reveals to us a secret of which, in truth, it knows nothing"… hmm very mysterious.

Oli: “This so soft a look,” the French writer Alfred Dumesnil wrote in 1854, “but avid like the sea, devours.”

Janine: Easy tiger! Legend has it that in 1852, the painting drove French artist Luc Maspero to jump out of his hotel window. “For years I have grappled desperately with her smile,” he allegedly wrote.

Oli: If you’ve ever seen the painting in the Louvre, you might well wonder just what is it that makes her so very famous. She, with her enigmatic smile, missing eyebrows, showing the special trademark technique that Leonardo used – called sfumato. Technically it means where colours blend in so well you can’t see where they start or end. In the case of the Mona Lisa, this applies to that famous smile. There is a veil of craquelure, tiny age cracks in the paint that cannot be imitated. But why, out of the artist’s many paintings, would this be the one that everyone remembers him for?

Janine: I asked Irina Metzl, the communications manager at the Chateau du Clos Lucé, which is a fabulous place, looks just as it did when Leonardo lives there and even has a resident cat called Mignon who sleeps on his four poster bed! Anwyay she says that there are a number of reasons – the enigmatic smile, the mystery of who she was. But most of all it’s because the Mona Lisa was abducted – and it had a life changing affect on her career as a painting!

Oli: Absolutely that had such a huge impact. In 1911 an Italian workman named Vincenzo Peruggia was employed at the Louvre as a glazier – he even worked helped build the glass frame the Mona Lisa was kept in. In those days there were thousands of Italian immigrants working in Paris. The French called the Les macaronis! Well one night he spent the whole night hiding in a cupboard. When everyone had gone home, he slipped the painting out of its frame, hid it under his workman’s smock and in the morning he simply walked out and took off with it.

Janine: It was a complete mystery. There was absolute pandemonium and the news spread like wildfire. The police had no idea who had stolen the painting. They interviewed the staff, re-enacted the crime and used the new in those days technique of dusting for fingers prints. The museum was closed for 9 days. The French border was sealed and ships and trains departing France were searched. Nothing. Amateur detectives got involved, nutty professors and clairvoyants. When the Louvre reopened, thousands of people lined up to look at the empty space and leave notes, flowers and gifts.

Oli: for a while it was even suspected that an artist named Pablo Picasso might be the thief, which as you can imagine caused a sensation. Apparently a former worker at the Louvre confessed to stealing other artworks and he had sold some of them to Picasso. But the police couldn’t build a case and Picasso went free.

Janine: Generous rewards were offered for her return. The police printed 6,500 copies of the Mona Lisa and distributed the paper image to the public. Every newspaper covered the story. Millions of people saw the painting and had an opinion. The story went viral.

Oli: Peruggia kept his head down and he kept the painting hidden in his lodgings in in Saint-Germain-des-Prés in a hotel now called – wait for it, The Hotel de Vicini. He actually kept the painting in a cupboard for more than two years!

Janine: Can you imagine him taking it out now and again and looking at it? Incredible. There were loads of rumours about where the Mona Lisa was hidden. Clairvoyants and witnesses claimed she in the Bronx in an apartment or in a private collection in St Petersburg, even that the American banker JP Morgan had bought her and hidden her in a secret room in his mansion. But no, the whole time it was in Paris. Apparently he said he thought it should be returned to Italy, revenge for the artworks that the Emperor Napoleon had taken on his campaigns in Europe. But see what you think when we take a look at what he did next…

Oli: In late November 1913, he sent a letter to an antique-dealer in Florence, Alfredo Geri, offering to 'return' the Mona Lisa to Italy. He demanded 500,000 lire. The letter was signed: 'Leonardo Vincenzo', with a PO box number in the place de la Republique in Paris. He took a train to Florence in December with the Mona Lisa in a wooden trunk, and checked into a hotel which is still in business, though now called - what else? - the Hotel La Gioconda.

Janine: Peruggia went to the Uffizi Museum to show the painting to prove it was the real deal. It was in a box covered up with some old shoes and woollen underclothes. It’s said that he had a “kind of fixed stare, smiling complacently, as if he had painted it himself."

Oli: Yes I think he must have fallen in love with her…

Janine: The Uffizi staff handed him over to the police. He was arrested of course. At his trial he said he actually didn’t mean to steal her. He meant to steal another painting but he took her because she was smaller. He got a year in prison and became somewhat a hero in Italy for trying to return her! Amazingly he moved back to France when he came out of prison and opened a paint store in Haute-Savoie! Mona Lisa went on a triumphal tour of Italy and was then returned to her home on the wall of the Louvre. Apparently she was such a sensation that it became fashionable for women to dust yellow powder over their face and necks to look like her golden complexion. In the cabarets of Paris dancers dressed up like her and did a saucy dance. By the time she got back to Paris she was the most famous woman in the world, the first mass art icon.

Oli: The story gripped the imagination of millions. She became an international celebrity. Everyone knew who she was. Huge amounts of coverage was generated – newspapers, magazines, postcards, songs.

Janine: And her fame has never really gone away. Andy Warhol portrayed her in his pop art masterpiece, the wonderful Nat King Cole sang Mona Lisa. Can you sing it Oli?

Oli: No I don’t actually know that one

Janine Sings: Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa, Men have named you, You’re so like the lady with the mystic smile…

Janine: Lovely song. Anwyay,sShe now lives in Salle des États, the largest room in the palace and the only painting on the wall where she is visited by about 9 to 10 million people each year. Did you know Mona Lisa gets fan mail? At one point in the past, she received such, lets say ardent love letters that she was given police protection! At the Louvre there is a little mailbox where people can post letters to her! Some leave questions about Leonardo’s work, while others ask for life advice. Some write to Mona Lisa declaring their love and even asking for her hand in marriage.

Oli: Lots of people ask about her eyebrows and eyelashes! She doesn’t have any in the painting and it’s been a mystery for years – people thought it might be a fashion of the day, but it’s now believed that cleaning of the painting, and age, have caused them to fade but if you view the painting through an ultra-digital scan, she has eyebrows and eyelashes!

Janine: Beyonce and Jay Z filmed a video at the Louvre featuring the Mona Lisa for one of their songs. I wonder how many people have her print in their home? My mum used to have a print in our kitchen – she cut it out of a magazine and I have it in my house now, faded but much loved. I also have a Mona Lisa fan – on hot days I flick it open and she keeps my face cool!

Oli: She’s on drinks coasters, mouse pads and handbags. 500 years after she was painted, she’s still one of the most well-known women in the world – and yet we know so little about her!

Janine: How much do you think she’s worth?

Oli: I couldn’t even guess, a wild amount of money.

Janine: Well in the 1960s she went on tour and was valued for insurance at $100 million. In 2014 she was assessed to be worth… wait for it … $2.5 billion. And now, I mean she’s priceless really isn’t she but it’s thought in excess of $3 billion.

Oli: This wasn’t the only journey she took either. In the 1930s, officials at the Louvre were preparing contingency plans for evacuating the museum’s priceless art in the event of war. And when Germany invaded Belgium and eastern France in 1940, their efforts to crate, transport and hide thousands of artworks became really frantic. Officials and volunteers crated up 3500 works of art. They requisitioned every big truck they could find and it wasn’t easy, some of the paintings were huge like the ‘The Wedding Feast at Cana’ by Veronese which measures 33 feet. One large truck carried the gasoline necessary to fuel the other trucks in the convoy. Between June 5 and June 17 1940, over 3000 of these pieces of art arrived at the Loc Dieu Abbey deep in the Lot region in southwest France... the perfect hiding place for the treasure.

Janine: I was there two weeks ago and it’s a really beautiful but yes, very secret part of France, I fell head over heels for it. Anyway, the abbey is near the town of Villefranche-de-Rourgue and its origins go back almost 1000 years when Cistercian monks established it though over the years it has been damaged, rebuilt and restored many times. Among these priceless works that were taken there was the Mona Lisa. She made the several hours long trip in her own private car. More than 250 people arrived with the art, brought along to unpack and care for it while it was in hiding. Some of these people were housed at the monastery, while others found lodging in tiny villages nearby.

Oli: Alas, the art stayed only a few months. The multiple springs which supplied the monastery grounds with water also made both the church and the other buildings too damp for the precious paintings. Even though it was the perfect hiding place, no one wanted to risk damage to the art. It was re-crated and moved. Mona Lisa found a new hiding place in the nearby city of Montauban where she was hidden in a museum until that was deemed unsafe and then she went to the Chateau de Montal near Rocamadour, where she stayed for the rest of the war and returned to Paris in 1945. She is not forgotten in Loc Dieu, though. One room of the house is dedicated to her stay. She is undoubtedly the Abbey’s most famous visitor, after all.

Janine: Well that wraps up our discovery of this famous painting, and I hope you enjoyed this voyage with the Mona Lisa! But now… it’s time for a reader’s question.

Oli: So Janine, what do we have this week, we get some great questions on here, about all sorts of things – we love to answer them!

Janine: so today’s question is from Tina Laine in Iowa, USA and she says “In a recent episode the question was asked who do you think is the most French person and you said Serge Gainsbourg and Victor Hugo – but who do you think is the most French woman?!” Well that’s a great question and I think I already know what Oli will say. Oli – what do you think.

Oli: Well of course it’s a personal opinion when we answer a question like this but for me there is only one – Edith Piaf! That voice – when she sings you hear France in music. And her story is extraordinary. Abandoned at birth in Paris by her café-singer mother, taken in by her grandmother and reared in a house of ill repute. She was temporarily blinded by complications of meningitis but recovered her sight four years later. She travelled with her father while he performed as an acrobat, she sang in the streets of Paris for money. And she became a legend. A true legend. Such talent.

Janine: You know Oli, I think I agree with you on this one. When I hear La Vie en Rose, or Non, je ne regrette rien, I get goosebumps. And everywhere you go in France you still hear her music played. I remember sitting at a little auberge, a cosy restaurant in the Mountains of Champagne, it was a sunny day and we sat outside and there was a birthday party inside, a big family, very French and music played everyone was happy and talking and laughing then someone put on the an Edith Piaf record – it was l’Accordeoniste, and everyone stopped talking and then people started to sing along, and honestly it made my eyes water it was one of those moments, you could see that people still loved her.

Oli: I was in a bouchon in Lyon last week with my family and they played one of her songs. Yes she is very loved.

Janine: Like you say – she is France in music.

Oli: We should do an Edith Piaf podcast! Thanks so much for that question, Tina. If any has a question for us – feel free to send it to janine@thegoodlifefrance.com or via our podcast newsletter. And, if there’s a topic you want to know more about – let us know!

Thank you so much, a massive merci beaucoup, to everyone for listening to our podcast from 148 countries all around the world! And huge thank you for sharing the podcast with your friends and family, we’re truly grateful when you do that. You’ve been listening to Janine Marsh and me Olivier Jauffrit. You can find me at parischanson.fr

Janine: And you can find me and heaps of information about France – where to visit, culture, history, recipes – everything France - at thegoodlifefrance.com where you can subscribe to the podcast, my weekly newsletter about France and our totally brilliant, totally free magazine which you can read at magazine.thegoodlifefrance.com

But for now, it’s au revoir from me.

Oli: And goodbye from me.

Janine: Speak to you soon!

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#40 - The Mystery of the Mona Lisa

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