The treasure of the Louvre, "Mona Lisa" is being targeted!
With the Paris Olympics just around the corner, the Louvre is sure to see a wave of peak visitors this summer.
I believe that many friends who are planning to visit Paris from China have travel plans to visit the Louvre and check in the three treasures of the town hall, right?
Of the Three Treasures, the Mona Lisa is undoubtedly the most topical, with millions of people cramming their scalps in the small exhibition hall every year just to catch a glimpse of her mysterious smile.
Stolen, smashed, spilled canned soup...... Many of the controversial events in the pavilion also took place around it.
And recently, the Mona Lisa has been targeted by a mysterious organization that threatens to remove it from the Louvre!
4月25日,法国最高行政法院(The Council of State)收到了一份奇怪的请求:
A mysterious organization called the International Restitutions appealed to the French government to remove the Mona Lisa from the Louvre as soon as possible and return the painting to them.
The owner of this association is unknown, and its registered place is a small village in the southern French city of Perpignan, but the local municipality and villagers have never heard of its existence.
The association said it had applied on behalf of "descendants of a family of painters" (i.e., the Leonardo da Vinci family), claiming that French ownership of the Mona Lisa "did not exist" and therefore demanded the return of the painting.
Knowing that the Mona Lisa has been preserved in France for almost 500 years, why do they think that France does not own the painting?
Everyone knows that the author of the "Mona Lisa" is the Italian Leonardo da Vinci, and it is rumored that this painting was commissioned by the wealthy Italian businessman Giconda to make a portrait of the wealthy businessman's wife Lisa Gioconda.
For this reason, in French, the painting is called "La Joconde" instead of the Mona Lisa.
But for some reason, Leonardo da Vinci did not give the painting to the Gioconda family, but took it with him to France.
In 1516, Leonardo da Vinci was invited by King François I of France to live in France, and the painting followed him to France.
Three years later, Leonardo da Vinci died of illness in France, entrusting his paintings to his apprentices. Legend has it that the Mona Lisa became the property of France when King François I bought the paintings from his apprentices.
However, the process of this purchase is historically unknown, and there is no record of the purchase certificate, except that the painting ended up in the hands of the King of France.
It is only in modern times that scholars have found documents mentioning that François I bought a batch of paintings from Leonardo da Vinci's apprentices for 2,600 French pounds, but did not mention that the Mona Lisa was not included in them.
Therefore, in the introduction page of the Louvre's official website, it is also said that the painting was "most likely" (très probablement) was bought by the king in 1518, but it is not conclusive.
But it is this "high probability" that allows the International Association for Restitution to take advantage of the loophole.
Since you can't tell where the painting came from, it is possible that the king used his power to take it by chance.
They said that the French king's ownership of the painting "did not exist" and that the painting should be returned to the Leonardo da Vinci family immediately.
Although Leonardo da Vinci had no children in his life, he had many half-brothers, and the blood of the Leonardo da Vinci family was not severed, and there are still 14 people in Italy who are descendants of the Leonardo da Vinci family.
But neither the French nor Italian governments had ever heard of any claims made by the 14 men about the Mona Lisa, nor did they know who the International Restitution Association was helping to commission.
At present, all major French media have analyzed that the French Supreme Administrative Court will definitely reject the other party's request, because only members of the Leonardo da Vinci family are qualified to file such appeals.
Coupled with the principle of "whoever doubts shall provide evidence", since you said that the painting was not bought by the King of France, then you also have to show evidence......
Leonardo da Vinci's posthumous works were basically bought by the French royal family, and it is unlikely that this painting was omitted alone, so there is nothing wrong with saying that this painting was bought by France.
I feel that this wave is this association taking advantage of the Olympics to make big news, I don't know what will happen to this mysterious organization in the future......
However, it may also be that the news is heating up, and the director of the Louvre Museum in France, Laurence Des Cars, announced last Saturday that they are discussing with the Ministry of Culture about the possibility of improving the conditions of the Mona Lisa exhibition.
According to statistics, more than 20,000 visitors come to the Louvre every day to enjoy the Mona Lisa, and so many tourists are crammed into a small exhibition hall, which is not a good thing for the preservation of the paintings or for the safety of visitors.
As a result, the Louvre is considering placing the Mona Lisa in a separate underground gallery for better management.
Returning to the Mona Lisa itself, the painting was unknown before the 19th century, with only a few professionals in the painting world praising it, but it was far from being well-known today.
It wasn't until 1911 that an Italian named Vincenzo Perugia stole the painting from the Louvre back to Italy and sold it to antiquities dealers. Later, after several twists and turns, the painting was finally recovered by the French police.
It is also interesting to say that at the court scene that year, Perugia also said that France did not have the ownership of the "Mona Lisa", and this painting should be a treasure of the Italians.
After this theft, countless French people came to the Louvre to see this painting that was grabbed by the Italians, and then the "Mona Lisa" became famous.
So, the life of the Mona Lisa is a life full of controversy, and as long as it persists, the controversy surrounding it may never go away......