Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: Where is the Mona Lisa painting located today?
According to Leonardo's early biographer Giorgio Vasari, Leonardo had started to paint "Mona Lisa" in 1503, but "left it unfinished". However, a fully finished painting of a "certain Florentine lady" surfaced again in 1517, shortly before Leonardo's death and in his private possession. The latter painting almost certainly is the one that now hangs in the Louvre. Based on this contradiction, supporters of the authenticity of the "Isleworth Mona Lisa" claim it is the unfinished "Mona Lisa", made at least partially by Leonardo, and the Louvre "Mona Lisa" a later version of it, made by Leonardo for his own use.
This is a list of the highest known prices paid for paintings. The current record price is approximately $450 million paid for Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi" in November 2017.
The Galleria dell'Accademia has housed the original "David" by Michelangelo since 1873. The sculpture was allegedly brought to the Accademia for reasons of conservation, although other factors were involved in its move from its previous outdoor location on Piazza della Signoria. The original intention was to create a 'Michelangelo museum', with original sculptures and drawings, to celebrate the fourth centenary of the artist's birth. Today, the gallery's small collection of Michelangelo's work includes his four unfinished "Prisoners", intended for the tomb of Pope Julius II, and a statue of Saint Matthew, also unfinished. In 1939, these were joined by a "Pietà" discovered in the Barberini chapel in Palestrina, though experts now consider its attribution to Michelangelo to be dubious.
While there Monet completed a series of artwork on the Canale Grande painting the same motif at different times of the day. Monet had the habit of studying the same subject in a varying light, at different times of the day, which resulted during his active career in many distinct Monet series, like for example the "Water Lilies" series, "Poplar" series, "Rouen Cathedral" series, "Haystacks" series and "Charing Cross Bridge" series. Monet painted 37 works of Venice during his three-month stay in Italy, from October to December, including this painting and five more depicting the same theme, Canale Grande. One is hosted at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Principal photography began in September 2012 in Paris and Menton, France. In October 2012, the production moved to Italy, first to Grimaldi, the village near Ventimiglia, which bears the name of the royal house of Monaco, then in Mortola, near Ventimiglia at Villa Hanbury. The production was granted permission to close Monaco's main square for 24 hours between October 29–30, 2012, and during this time the cast were seen filming outside and around the Monte Carlo Casino. In November 2012 and, again, in January 2013, the production was in Genoa, Italy, on the housed set in the Royal Palace in Via Balbi, where the Hall of Mirrors replicates the residence of the royal court of Monaco. Interiors were shot in Belgium (Belgian parliament in Brussels, the city of Ghent and television studios in Lint.)
The Brutus is a marble bust of Brutus sculpted by Michelangelo around 1539–1540. It is now in the Bargello museum in Florence.
One of Monet's larger paintings, it shows the beauty of the sunset reflecting off the water. In 1919, Claude Monet was an elderly man who had already had been painting for almost 70 years, and his "Water Lilies" series came during a time when he was mainly painting water lilies in his pond, the pond's bridge, and his garden.
The Entrance to the Grand Canal, Venice, is an oil painting on canvas by the Venetian painter Canaletto. It is a Rococo landscape painting measuring currently held as part of the Robert Lee Blaffer Memorial Collection in the Audrey Jones Beck Building at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in Houston, Texas. It was a gift from Sarah Campbell Blaffer.
A variant of the painting with a larger church tower and an additional building is used as the Venetian screen in the 2001 video game "Merchant Prince II".
Water Lilies (or Nymphéas, ) is a series of approximately 250 oil paintings by French Impressionist Claude Monet (1840–1926). The paintings depict his flower garden at his home in Giverny, and were the main focus of his artistic production during the last thirty years of his life. Many of the works were painted while Monet suffered from cataracts.
The painting was rediscovered in December 2009 after being off public display for around forty years. It was purchased by Steve Wynn at Christie's in December 2009 for £20 million, the highest price ever paid for a painting by Rembrandt. In 2011 it was purchased by Isabel and Alfred Bader. They offered it for sale at the 2011 TEFAF art show in Maastricht for 47 million euros. The Baders donated the painting to the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in December 2015.
The Medici Villa of Poggio a Caiano, also called Ambra, is one of the most famous Medici villas and is located in Poggio a Caiano (Prato). Today it is state owned and it houses two museums: one of the historic apartments (ground floor and first floor) and the Museum of Still Life (second floor).
The Florentine "Prigioni" (The "Young Slave", the "Bearded Slave", the "Atlas Slave", and the "Awakening Slave") were probably sculpted in the latter half of the 1520s, when Michelangelo was employed at San Lorenzo in Florence (but historians have suggested dates between 1519 and 1534). They are known to have been in the artist's store on the via Mozza until 1544, when Michelangelo's nephew, Leonardo Buonarroti, asked for permission to sell them (Michelangelo did not set foot in Florence after 1534). This permission was denied and it was only in 1564 that they were sold, along with "The Genius of Victory" to the Grand Duke Cosimo I, who placed them in the four corners of the Grotto of Buontalenti before 1591. They were removed from there in 1908 to join the Michelangelo collection which had been formed in the Florentine gallery.
Michelangelo was born in Florence in 1475 and, like Leonardo, was a true Renaissance man. He was a sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. He was considered the greatest living artist in his lifetime and, since then, one of the greatest artists of all time. His two best-known sculptures, the Pietà and David, are famous throughout the world. Michelangelo also created two of the most famous and influential frescoes in the history of Western art: the scenes from Genesis covering the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and The Last Judgment on the altar wall of the Chapel.
The original wax sculpture was acquired by Paul Mellon in 1956. Beginning in 1985, Mr and Mrs Mellon gave the National Gallery of Art 49 Degas waxes, 10 bronzes and 2 plasters, the largest group of original Degas sculptures. "Little Dancer" was among the bequests. In 1997, the Airaindor-Valsuani foundry in France began casting a limited edition of Degas bronzes from the pre-1903 "Little Dancer" plaster. One such "Little Dancer" bronze is owned by the M.T. Abraham Foundation, which, at times, is lent to other institutions and museums including the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Like the various states of many of Degas' prints, the Valsuani bronzes record the first version of Degas' "Little Dancer", while the Hébrard casts record the second and final state of the sculpture.
The Apollo, Apollo-David, David-Apollo, or Apollino is a 1.46 m unfinished marble sculpture by Michelangelo that dates from approximately 1530. It now stands in the Bargello museum in Florence.
The so-called Templecombe painting, a painting discovered in 1945 by Mrs Molly Drew in the roof of an outhouse of a cottage in Templecombe, England, has been alleged to be a copy of the image on the Turin Shroud, and therefore evidence of the Turin Shroud being in the possession of the Knights Templar during its "hidden years".
The painting has been on display in St Mary's Church in the village since 1956 (the only Templar-related site to have survived there), and has been carbon-dated to c. 1280. Some people believe that it is a Templar-commissioned image of either Jesus Christ or the severed head of John the Baptist, although it is without a Halo.
The room Is dedicated to two important masterpieces of the Medici era recently restored: the imposing frieze that adorned the façade of the Villa and was commissioned by Lorenzo himself, and the precious tapestry of the Hunting Swan, one of 36 tapestries designed by Giorgio Vasari on commission of Cosimo I, especially for the Villa. Finally, though temporarily, the room is embellished with the 17th century painting of a beautiful family tree of the Medici family.
"The Last Judgement" was painted by Michelangelo from 1535 to 1541, between two important historic events: the Sack of Rome by mercenary forces of the Holy Roman Empire in 1527, and the Council of Trent which commenced in 1545. The work was designed on a grand scale, and spans the entire wall behind the altar of the Sistine Chapel. The painting depicts the second coming of Christ on the Day of Judgment as described in the Revelation of John, Chapter 20. High on the wall is the heroic figure of Christ, with the saints clustered in groups around him. At the bottom left of the painting the dead are raised from their graves and ascend to be judged. To the right are those who are assigned to Hell and are dragged down by demons.
Located on the Gulf of Genoa in the Ligurian Sea, Genoa has historically been one of the most important ports on the Mediterranean: it is currently the busiest in Italy and in the Mediterranean Sea and twelfth-busiest in the European Union. Genoa has been nicknamed "la Superba" ("the proud one") due to its glorious past and impressive landmarks. Part of the old town of Genoa was inscribed on the World Heritage List (UNESCO) in 2006 as . The city's rich cultural history in art, music and cuisine allowed it to become the 2004 European Capital of Culture. It is the birthplace of Christopher Columbus, Andrea Doria, Niccolò Paganini, Giuseppe Mazzini, Renzo Piano and Grimaldo Canella, founder of the House of Grimaldi, among others.
Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio (, , ; 28 September 1571 – 18 July 1610) was an Italian painter active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily from the early 1590s to 1610. His paintings combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, which had a formative influence on Baroque painting.
The then highest price ever paid for an artwork at auction was $142.4 million for a 1969 triptych, "Three Studies of Lucian Freud", by Francis Bacon in November 2012. The record was broken in May 2015 by $179.4 million for Pablo Picasso's 1955 painting "Les Femmes d’Alger".
In 2011, the Prado museum in Madrid, Spain, announced discovery of what may be the earliest known replica.
Miguel Falomir, heading the Department of Italian Renaissance Painting at the time of the discovery, stated the Prado "had no idea of (the painting's) significance" until a recent restoration.
Recovered from the Prado's vaults, the replica – which El Mundo newspaper dubbed ""Mona Lisa"'s twin" ("above, far right") – was reportedly painted simultaneously alongside Leonardo as he painted his own "Mona Lisa"; in the same studio, by a "key" student.
It was painted on walnut. The replica has been part of the Prado's collection since the museum's founding in 1819.
The Prado "Mona Lisa" is a painting of the same subject as Leonardo da Vinci's famous "Mona Lisa" (which is held by the Louvre Museum, Paris). The painting has been displayed in the Museo del Prado in Madrid (Spain) since 1819, but was considered for decades a worthless copy. However, after its restoration in 2012, the Prado's "Mona Lisa" was claimed to be the earliest replica of Leonardo's masterpiece.
Leonardo da Vinci is thought by some to have begun painting the "Mona Lisa" in 1503 or 1504 in Florence, Italy. Although the Louvre states that it was "doubtless painted between 1503 and 1506", the art historian Martin Kemp says there are some difficulties in confirming the actual dates with certainty. In addition, many Leonardo experts, such as Carlo Pedretti and Alessandro Vezzosi, are of the opinion that the painting is characteristic of Leonardo's style in the final years of his life, post-1513. Other academics argue that, given the historical documentation, Leonardo would have painted the work from 1513. According to Leonardo's contemporary, Giorgio Vasari, "after he had lingered over it four years, [he] left it unfinished". Leonardo, later in his life, is said to have regretted "never having completed a single work".
Circa 1504, Raphael executed a pen and ink sketch, today in the Louvre museum, in which the subject is flanked by large columns. Experts universally agree it is based on Leonardo's portrait of "Mona Lisa". Other later copies of the "Mona Lisa", such as those in the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo and The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, also display large flanking columns. As a result, it was originally thought that the "Mona Lisa" in the Louvre had side columns and had been cut. However, as early as 1993, Zöllner observed that the painting surface had never been trimmed. This was confirmed through a series of tests conducted in 2004. In view of this, Vincent Delieuvin, curator of 16th-century Italian painting at the Louvre museum states that the sketch and these other copies must have been inspired by another version, while Frank Zöllner states that the sketch brings up the possibility that Leonardo executed another work on the subject of Mona Lisa.
Also, according to Henry F. Pulitzer in his book "Where is the Mona Lisa?" (1960), Gian Paolo Lomazzo, an artist and writer, refers in his "Trattato dell'arte della Pittura Scultura ed Architettura" (1584), to ""della Gioconda, e di Mona Lisa" (the Gioconda, and the Mona Lisa)". "La Gioconda" is sometimes used as an alternative title of the "Mona Lisa" hanging in the Louvre; the reference implies that these were, in fact, two separate paintings. Pulitzer reproduces the critical page from Lomazzo's tract in his own book.