Vinci - The Blue Mona Lisa

Leonardo da Vinci is one of the most fascinating figures in the history of Western art. Trained in Florence as a painter and sculptor in the studio of Andrea del Verrocchio, his curiosity and insatiable hunger for learning never left him. He was constantly observing, experimenting and inventing; drawing was a tool for him to record his research into nature. He drew what he saw in the world around him, human anatomy, the life of animals and plants, the movement of water and the flight of birds.

Painted between 1503 and 1506 or between 1513 and 1516, perhaps as late as 1517, the Mona Lisa (Italian: La Gioconda or Monna Lisa) is a half-length portrait of the Florentine Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo. Most likely acquired by Francis ^I , this oil painting on poplar wood panel measuring 77 × 53 cm is on display at the Louvre Museum in Paris. The Mona Lisa is one of the few paintings attributed with certainty to Leonardo da Vinci.