Mona Lisa

Can you just imagine a priceless pieceof artwork that is beyond insurance? Mona Lisa unlike most people would think is not actually an imaginary title of a piece of art work. Rather, this painting (1503-7), executed by the greatest artist and creative mind so far modern history has known, arguably, – the Italian Renaissance master, Leonardo da Vinci, and measuring 77cmx53cm, is the portrait of the wife of a local Italian peasant.

Today this painting also arguably, is the most important singular piece of artwork that is available, both in terms of value, as well as popularity, and bearing in mind that it is after all not a very large scale job per se. The Mona Lisa is the most famous painting in the history of art and continues to inspire oil painting reproductions, parody, scientific theory, and more. According to the Guinness Book of world Records, Mona Lisa was assessed for insurance purposes at $100 million in 1962, but insurance was not concluded because the cost of the strictest security precautions was less that of the premium.

'Mona Lisa' by Leonardo da Vinci

Mona Lisa which is housed in the popular (Gallery) Louvre in Paris, France, is a jealously and heavily guarded and secured piece of art. It is protected in a climate controlled environment and encased in bullet proof glass, a room which caused seven million dollars to build at the time. This painting which is considered priceless and cannot be insured has since become a proud property of the French people and government, and has therefore survived more than 500 years today.

Mona Lisa has been an object of great inspiration for many a creative mind all over the world: notable among the many is the sonorous African American voice of decades ago – the great Nath King Cole of blessed memory. As you fall in love with the melodious music extolling the virtues and beauty of Mona Lisa, you equally fall for the unmistakable and arresting beauty of the lady in the picture.

Mona Lisa is described among so many things as the lady with the mystic smile. She stares at you as if from all angles, and smiling irresistibly in her charm. So many factors have stood out this painting of the great Renaissance man – Leonardo da Vinci apart from, and including the deft painting skills of the master himself. And on 21 August of 1911, the art theft of the century occurred as the most famous painting in the world was stolen from its resting place at the Louvre. I cannot just imagine how anybody could have succeeded, but it did happen.

But after so much of ransacking and sacking of museum staff and security personnel without any head way, she was later found not quite a few blocks away from where her adopter took her from. In November 1913 Mona Lisa was found and returned to the same home where it has always been, at the Louvre museum gallery in Paris. 

By Morgan Nwanguma