Saturday, April 25, 2015

How old was Mona Lisa when she was drawn by Leonardo da Vinci?

It’s difficult to give an exact age, but we can estimate.


The Mona Lisa, painted by Leonardo da Vinci, depicts Lisa (Gherardini) del Giocondo, the third wife of a wealthy merchant in Florence, Italy.


We know she was born in 1479. We also know the portrait itself had to have been painted sometime between 1503 and 1506. da Vinci, who had been a mapmaker in the Italian military, only returned to Florence in 1503, and by 1506 he had already left for Milan. Although we’re not quite sure how long the painting took, the model would have only needed to be present in the beginning. Assuming that Lisa del Giocondo sat for the portrait in 1503, this would put her age at around 24.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thomas Jefferson's election in 1800 is sometimes called the Revolution of 1800. Why could it be described in this way?

Thomas Jefferson’s election in 1800 can be called the “Revolution of 1800” because it was the first time in America’s short history that pow...