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 T-shirts, her likeness has also been re-imagined using coffee, toast, seaweed, Rubik's Cubes, and computer chips, to name only a few. Now over five-hundred years since her creation, the perpetuation of "Mona Lisa"'s influence is reinforced with every reinterpretation. At the start of the 16th century, Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned by Florentine nobleman Francesco del Giocondo to paint a portrait of his wife, Lisa. The painting is believed to have been undertaken between 1503 and 1506. Leonardo's portrait of "Mona Lisa" ("Mona" or "Monna" being the Italian honorific for "Madame") has been on display as part of the permanent