Mona Lisa Mona Lisa The Mona Lisa (; or La Gioconda , ) is a half-length portrait painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci that has been described as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world". The "Mona Lisa" is also one of the most valuable paintings in the world. It holds the Guinness World Record for the highest known insurance valuation in history at $100 million in 1962, which is worth nearly $800 million in 2017. The painting is thought to be a
Mona Lisa replicas and reinterpretations uncle of Napoleon Bonaparte, who owned another of Leonardo's paintings. Facial features bear only vague resemblance, but landscape, compositional and technical details correspond to those of the "Mona Lisa" known worldwide today. A student and companion of Leonardo da Vinci known as Salaì painted one of the nude interpretations of "Mona Lisa" known, titled "Mona Vanna". Salai's version is thought by some to have been "based on" the nude sometimes attributed to Leonardo, which is considered a lost work. Discussion among experts exists as to whether Salai, known to have modeled for Leonardo, may in fact have been the sitter