Mona Lisa
Leonardo da Vinci’s enigmatic portrait — the most famous painting in the world, and the reason millions cross the Louvre’s Denon wing every year.
Painted in Florence between about 1503 and 1519, the Mona Lisa (La Joconde in French) is an oil portrait on a poplar panel measuring just 77 by 53 centimetres. Its sitter is generally identified as Lisa Gherardini, wife of the Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo — hence the Italian title La Gioconda.
Leonardo’s revolutionary sfumato technique — imperceptible transitions of light and shade — gives the face its living softness and its famously unreadable smile. King François I acquired the panel for the French royal collection, and it has hung in the Louvre since the French Revolution.
Today the painting is shown behind protective glass in the Salle des États, the museum’s largest room, in the Denon wing. Its worldwide fame was sealed in 1911, when it was stolen by an Italian handyman, Vincenzo Peruggia, and recovered two years later.
- 🖼️TypeOil on poplar panel · 77 × 53 cm
- 🎨ArtistLeonardo da Vinci
- 📅Datec. 1503–1519
- 🏛️RoomSalle des États · Denon wing
- 📍LocationMusée du Louvre, 75001 Paris
About the Louvre
The Louvre is the world’s largest and most-visited art museum. Once the fortress and royal palace of the kings of France, it opened as a public museum in 1793 and today holds some 35,000 works spanning antiquity to the mid-19th century — from Egyptian antiquities and Greek marbles to the French Crown Jewels.
Since 1989, visitors enter beneath the glass Pyramid designed by architect I. M. Pei, which opens onto the museum’s three wings — Denon, Sully and Richelieu — arranged around the Cour Napoléon. The Louvre stands in the 1st arrondissement along the Rue de Rivoli, beside the Tuileries Gardens and the Seine.
The museum is open every day except Tuesday, from 9 am to 6 pm (with a late evening on Fridays). Timed tickets are strongly recommended and can be booked on the official site, louvre.fr; under-18s enter free, as do EU residents under 26. Nearest métro: Palais-Royal–Musée du Louvre (lines 1 and 7).
Where to see it — the Louvre and around
The Louvre (pulsing marker) at the centre. Toggle the filters to explore the heritage, gardens, restaurants and activities of the 1st arrondissement — and the hotels around it.