Venus in Blue Jeans 
Charles Nicholl
- Mona Lisa: The History of the World’s Most Famous Painting by Donald Sassoon
Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa may be ‘the world’s most famous painting’ but almost everything about it is obscure. We don’t know precisely when it was painted, we don’t know for certain who she is, and as we stare at her puzzling features for the umpteenth time we are inclined to ask ourselves: what is it about her? It is that question, in all its historical and cultural ramifications, which is addressed in Donald Sassoon’s elegant and comprehensive study of the Mona Lisa phenomenon.
Subscribers to the print edition can log in to view the entire article. For information about subscribing to the London Review of Books click here. This article is available for purchase online. Buy this article.
Charles Nicholl’s most recent book is The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street.
Other articles by this contributor:
Who was he? · Joe the Ripper
Field of Bones · the last journey of Thomas Coryate, the English fakir and legstretcher
Screaming in the Castle · the story of Beatrice Cenci
print layout
tell a friend