The Mona Lisa is the world’s most famous and most visited work of art, with up to ten million admirers every year. His mysterious smile is idolized by art lovers, but also by thieves, climate activists attacking him with soup, and even a man disguised as an elderly woman in a wheelchair, who threw a cake in his face.
Now, however, a new project may vindicate the last queen of France, Marie Antoinette, who found it “too small and too dark”. They want to relocate Leonardo da Vinci’s painting so that visitors can leave with a better taste after viewing it.
Visitors to the Louvre can admire the Mona Lisa for an average of 50 seconds, which is displayed in the middle of the Salle des Etats, behind a railing and bulletproof glass (the glass used to protect the painting after an acid attack in the 1950s), which many have called the world’s most disappointing masterpiece.
In fact, it is understandable, since due to the huge crowd and the limited space available in the gallery, the Mona Lisa is difficult to see.
Faced with this problem, the director of the Paris museum is now proposing that da Vinci’s work be housed separately to improve the experience.
“Moving the Mona Lisa to a separate room could end the disappointment of the public,” said Laurence des Cars, the museum’s director.
Your own room sounds good, but the initiative would involve quite a lot of renovation, including the opening of a new entrance to the Louvre Palace (on the facade of the colonnade) and the creation of two new rooms in the basement below the square courtyard of the Louvre. One of the “underground chambers” would serve as a set for the Mona Lisa. Although this could help queuing and provide direct access for visitors, it would cost roughly 500 million euros – which is hardly music to the ears of the French government and cuts to the culture budget, he writes. euronews.com.
