Overview
Leonardo began the portrait in Florence around 1503 and kept refining it, possibly until late in his life. The sitter is generally identified as Lisa del Giocondo, wife of the Florentine cloth merchant Francesco del Giocondo — hence the Italian name La Gioconda.
Description
It is a half-length portrait in oil on a poplar panel, about 77 × 53 cm — far smaller than its fame suggests. The famous smile and the dreamlike landscape behind her show Leonardo’s sfumato: forms modeled by soft gradations of tone instead of hard outlines.
History and legacy
Leonardo took the painting to France, where it entered the royal collection and eventually the Louvre. Its theft by Vincenzo Peruggia in 1911 — it was recovered in Florence two years later — turned an admired masterpiece into a global celebrity, and it now draws more visitors than any other artwork.