Artist: Leonardo da Vinci

Era: (1452 – 1519) Painted in  between 1503-1506

Background: Artist Leonardo da Vinci was the illegitimate son of a notary from Vinci near Florence.  Handsome with a great physique, he possessed an aptitude for singing.  He was an artist, scientist, philosopher, anatomist, astronomer, engineer, inventor and courtier, a true Renaissance man.

Most people know that Leonardo da Vinci is the artist, but many believe that the woman’s identity is unknown. Some even think that it’s him – Leonardo da Vinci himself in the female form. The most commonly believed theory is that the woman is Lisa Gherardini, born in 1479. She was 24 years old and the mother of two sons when she posed for the painting. Why he chose her is still a mystery.

It is painted with oils on a poplar wooden panel.

Field: Painting, Drawing, Sculpture, Printmaking, Ceramics

Movement: Italian Rennaissance (Although early Symbolists claim it as a symbol of the feminine mystique.

Review: Critic Walter Pater, in his 1867 essay on da Vinci, gave his view describing the figure in the painting as a kind of mythic embodiment of ageless femininity, who is “older than the rocks among which she sits” and who “has been dead many times and learned the secrets of the grave.”

Work: