Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is undoubtedly the world’s most famous painting. But, despite this, many visitors to the Louvre come away disappointed after they see the masterpiece. The real-life painting has a hard time living up to the myth of the “most perfect picture ever painted.” How did the Mona Lisa go from being a well-regarded Da Vinci portrait to being an international celebrity? It seems like the 1911 theft of the painting from the Louvre completely changed the Mona Lisa‘s stature in the world of art. The question is, would she be this famous if she had never been stolen? Tune-in and find out how shaving in front of a Rembrandt, Paris Syndrome, and the worst guards ever all play a role in the story.

Works Cited

Day, Nicholas. The Mona Lisa Vanishes. Random House Studio, New York, 2023.

Hatfield, Rab. The Three Mona Lisas. Officina Libraria, 2014.

Hales, Dianne. Mona Lisa : A Life Discovered. First Simon&Schuster hardcover edition., Simon & Schuster, 2014.

Leader, Darian. Stealing the Mona Lisa : What Art Stops Us from Seeing. Counterpoint, 2003.

McMullen, Roy. Mona Lisa : The Picture and the Myth. Houghton Mifflin, 1975.

Sassoon, Donald. Becoming Mona Lisa : The Making of a Global Icon. 1st U.S. ed., Harcourt, 2001.