Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is the most famous painting in the world. 500 years old and just 77x53cm in size, it is kept behind bulletproof glass in the Louvre museum in Paris, where it draws 10 million visitors a year. But how did a small portrait find global fame? Who is the woman in the painting, and why is the world so intrigued by her smile?

This is a Short History Of the Mona Lisa.

Written by Nicola Rayner. With thanks to Donald Sassoon, historian and the author of Mona Lisa: The History of the World’s Most Famous Painting.

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