Mona Lisa — Leonardo da Vinci

Description

The Original Work

Leonardo da Vinci began the Mona Lisa (La Gioconda) around 1503 and was still refining it years later; he kept the panel with him until his death in France in 1519. The sitter is generally identified as Lisa Gherardini, wife of the Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo.

What makes the portrait extraordinary is technical as much as psychological. Leonardo modelled the face with sfumato — dozens of near-transparent glazes laid one over another, with no drawn line anywhere — so that the transitions from light to shadow have no edge at all. It is this, rather than any single expression, that produces the famous instability of the smile. The panel has been in the Louvre since 1797.

Our Reproduction

The original is painted on poplar; our reproduction is executed in pure oils on fine-grain linen stretched over a solid pine frame, which is the medium best suited to reproducing glazework at this scale. Sfumato cannot be rushed — the layers have to be built and left:

• Imprimatura — a warm linseed-oil ground, as Leonardo used
• Underpainting — the head, hands and landscape blocked in monochrome
• Glazing — successive transparent layers modelling the face and the aerial perspective behind it
• Finishing — the fine detail of the eyes, the mouth, the veil and the folded hands
• Varnishing — a final UV varnish to protect the colours

Production takes 10 to 15 business days. Your canvas arrives with a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.

Why Choose This Piece

This is a portrait, and portraits want to be met at eye level — a study, a hallway, a landing, somewhere you pass close to rather than view from across a room. The palette is entirely warm earths and browns, so it sits comfortably against wood, stone and darker walls. In the two larger formats the modelling of the hands and the landscape behind the shoulders becomes legible in a way the smaller sizes cannot carry.