MONA LISA COPIES

    "Mona Lisa", "La Gioconda", "Leonardo da Vinci" - these are words now familiar to every man in the street all over the world. The only artwork known to everyone. Female image haunting a contemporary everywhere.
     How many copies of this painting have been written and are there any author's copies available? How many Gioconda renderings have been created? One will hardly dare answer this question.
     There exist more than a dozen well-known copies which date back to the 16-th century, there are copies by well-known artists of 17-19-th centuries, there is a large iconography of naked Gioconda, there are many works on Mona Lisa theme painted by avant-garde classics of the 20-th century.
      Ageless "Mona Lisa" brand has been spreading globally for years.
     Where there is demand, there is supply. It's amazing, but auctions continue selling not only numerous Mona Lisa twins by unknown artists of the past years but also Gioconda remakes painted by modern artists.
Many of these paintings are of no significant artistic value, but the history of some works dated back to the 16-th century is so great that they are worth a separate story.  

     One of such copies with interesting history is the "Vernon Mona Lisa" called by art critics by the surname of the painting owners - Vernon family from the USA. The painting which had been kept in a bank storage vault for a long time was exhibited just twice for a short period of time, but even that was enough for da Vinci experts being involved into discussions as to the authorship of this painting. One could hardly call it an exact copy of the Louvre's "La Gioconda". The "Vernon Mona Lisa" has another form of the head, she's got no enigmatic smile, the background scene of the painting is not so detailed. But, as owners of the work state, this very painting is the original by Leonardo da Vinci. And they have good grounds to assert this.

       

     In 1778 a young aristocrat William Henry Vernon, a heir of a wealthy French-English family which had moved to America in the middle of the 18-th century, graduated from Princeton University and was sent by his parents to Paris to acquire high-society gloss. Vernon was favoured by a great family friend John Adams, who was then holding a post of the United States Ambassador in France and later on became the second president of the USA. In Paris Vernon was introduced to King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette with best recommendations. Soon Vernon fell in love with witty light-headed Marie Antoinette and became her favourite. The handsome young man visited not only all luxurious festivities in Versailles and meetings of famous "intimate circle" of the Queen, but also, according to some evidences, the royal bedroom.

     Close relations of Marie Antoinette and Vernon are proven by the fact that after Marie Antoinette had got to know about her favourite's collecting Renaissance paintings, the queen with careless generosity presented him many masterpieces being ornaments to the Louvre at that time.
     Vernon returned to America in 1797 and brought a collection of 52 paintings which included artworks by Rembrandt, Raffaello, Rubens, van Dyck and other famous masters. The "Second Mona Lisa" was also in the collection, it was catalogued as "The Nun" by Leonardo da Vinci. Dairy of Vernon's wife contains records stating that every evening William Henry used to pray in the family bedroom in front of this luxuriously framed painting.
     It's hard to say to which image did Vernon pray recalling Marie Antoinette: whether it was true "Mona Lisa" or yet unknown "The Nun". However, genuine documents concerning the Louvre's treasury inventory testify that the register for the year of 1700 contained painting by Leonardo da Vinci "The second Mona Lisa La Gioconda with the value no less than that of the first one", but the painting was not mentioned in the register for the year of 1806. During the period between two inventories it mysteriously disappeared from the Louvre together with other paintings by famous masters.

     According to the words of present owners of the "Vernon Mona Lisa", they plan selling the painting in the future. This is due to the fact that now the painting belongs to eight relatives, in the next generation there will be seventeen of them, and in future the number of owners will increase even more, and it will be more difficult to make any decisions as to the painting's future. Moreover, in the owners' opinion, now the time has come for the artwork to be displayed in one of the best museums in the world so that everyone willing to see it could do so.

     Below you can find Mona Lisa's "family album". Its pages display her close "relatives" ("La Gioconda" copies) as well as distant family members (Gioconda renderings).

     Due to large number of claimants to the place in the "family album", their range had to be limited to the most impressive individuals.

Leonardo da Vinci

Mona Lisa, Louvre. 1517    

Unknown artist

Mona Lisa, Prado 1517

Gabriel Joseph Ferrier

Mona Lisa Maria

Unknown artist

Mona Lisa, Reynolds

Unknown artist

Mona Lisa (copy)

Tor Egil Hansen

Mona Lisa (copy). 2005

Andrea Salai

Mona Vanna. 16 с.

Joos van Cleve

Monna Vanna

May Trung Thu

Mona Lisa. 

Raeda Saadeh

Mona Lisa. 2008

Kazimir Malevich

Composition with Mona Lisa. 1914

Igor Kuznetsov

Mona Lisa (manumission copy) 2009

Holger Bar

Untitled (Mona Lisa). 1999

Andy Warhol

Two White Mona Lisa.1980

Fernando Botero

Mona Lisa, Age Twelve. 1959

Jean-Marie Aude

Mona Bored. 1997

Blek le Ret

Mona Lisa

Jose Maria

Mona Frida. 2003

Unknown artist

Mona Lisa Abastract

Unknown autor

Mona Lisa Percolator

Jacob Brest

Mona Lisa

Unknown autor

Hand Woven Coir Mona Lisa. India

Gianni de Conno

Mona Lisa Photo

Andrea Salai

Mona Lisa (copy), Thalwil. 16 с.

Philippe de Champaigne

Mona Lisa (copy), Oslo. 1525

Unknown artist

Mona Lisa, Walters.1640

Unknown artist

Mona Lisa (copy)

Unknown artist

Mona Lisa (copy)

Jean Ducayer

Portrait of Woman.17 c. 

Andrea Salai

Donna Nuda, Hermitage. 16 с.

Unknown artist

Jioconda Nuda MacKenzie

Salvador Dali

Self-portrait as Mona Lisa

Banksy

Mona Lisa Mujaheddin. 1975

Jasper Johns

Figure 7. 1968

John Stango

Mona Lisa

Roman Cieslewicz

Mona Tse-Tung. 1977

Valery Koshlyakov

Mona Lisa. 2008

Vik Muniz

La Joconde

Victorvictori

Multiplism Mona Lisa

Fernando Bateroi

Mona Lisa

Brian Moss

Mona Lisa Psychedelic

Olga Kitt

21 Century Mona Lisa. 2009

Unknown artist

Mona Lisa Portugal

Gael Davinche

Suddenly She Felt a Terrible. 2011

Cristen Cumings

Mona Lisa from jelly beans

Unknown artist

Mona Lisa (copy), Hermitage. 16c 

Bernardino Luini

Mona Lisa (copy), Rome 

Unknown artist

Isleworht Mona Lisa. 1505

Louis Beroyd

Mona Lisa (copy), 19 c.

Unknown artist

La Belle Gabrielle

Carlo Antonio Procaccini

Jioconda Flora

Unknown artist

Jioconda Nuda, engraving

Marcel Duchamp

Mona Lisa. 1919

Naoto Katori

Mona Lisa Geisha.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Mona Lisa. 1983

Naoto Katori

Sweet Dreams

Banksy

Mona Lisa. 1975

Robert Raushenberg

Pneumonia Lisa. 1982

Rene Magritte

La Gioconda. 1960

Fernand Leger

Mona Lisa With Keys.1930

Roman Cieslewicz

Les Mona's Lisa's. 1969

Victorvictori

Multiplism Mona Lisa. 1984

Matias Argudin

Mona Lisa. 2006

Unknown artist

Mona Lisa Computer

Unknown artist

Mona Lisa Postmodern

Unknown autor

Silk carpet Mona Lisa. China

Unknown autor

The Woven Mona Lisa

     Replenishment of Mona Lisa's "family album" by relevant references is welcome in comments to this post.

Materials on the subject:

1. "Chayka" magazine No.18, 24.09.2004. Article "Kaleidoscope", Evgeny Manin.

2. "Chayka" magazine No.19, 08.10.2004. Article "Kaleidoscope", Evgeny Manin.
3. Termometro politiko. Forum: "In arrivo ... tante Gioconde per voi!"