HomeFeature#WealthyWishWednesday: The Mona Lisa – Most Valuable Artwork in the World admin Wednesday, October 15, 2014 Feature, Lifestyle, The Receipt This week’s #WWW or #WealthyWishesWednesday item in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most expensive painting in history: The Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa painting is the most known, most parodied, most sung, and most written about work of art in the world. The painting, thought to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, is in oil on a white Lombardy poplar panel, and is believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506, although Leonardo may have continued working on it as late as 1517. It was acquired by King Francis I of France and is now the property of the French Republic, on permanent display at The Louvre museum in Paris since 1797. The ambiguity of the subject’s expression, which is frequently described as enigmatic,[3] the monumentality of the composition, the subtle modeling of forms and the atmospheric illusionism were novel qualities that have contributed to the continuing fascination and study of the work. (via Wikipedia) To be considered as a “rare” painting, the master works must be dated prior to 1803. Due to the value of these paintings (i.e. the Mona Lisa), they are insured and held at museums for public viewing. However, the paintings are secured by high-tech alarm systems and security guards. The Mona Lisa painting resides in the Louvre Museum of Paris. It is viewed by thousands of patrons each year, many of which are celebrities like P. Diddy and, most recently, Beyonce and Jay Z. The Mona Lisa was worth $760 million in 2012. Today, the “most famous” piece of artwork has an estimated worth of $1.5 billion.
