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The Mona Lisa, also known as La Gioconda, (TV: City of Death [+]Loading...["City of Death (TV story)","City of Death"]; AUDIO: The Doomsday Chronometer [+]Loading...["The Doomsday Chronometer (audio story)","The Doomsday Chronometer"]) was Earth's most famous painting. It was painted (multiple times) by Leonardo da Vinci.
History
Creation
Leonardo da Vinci started painting the piece in 1503. It was originally a commission. (COMIC: Art Attack [+]Loading...["Art Attack (comic story)","Art Attack"]) According to one account his model for the painting was Clara Oswald; the Twelfth Doctor remarked that while the resemblance was poor, da Vinci had captured her smirk. (COMIC: The Swords of Kali [+]Loading...["The Swords of Kali (comic story)","The Swords of Kali"]) According to another account, the model was a contemporary of da Vinci. (TV: Mona Lisa's Revenge [+]Loading...["Mona Lisa's Revenge (TV story)","Mona Lisa's Revenge"])
In 1505, da Vinci was still working on the piece. Later that year, Scaroth of the Jagaroth, posing as a human known as Captain Tancredi, commissioned da Vinci to paint at least six copies of the Mona Lisa. While the Fourth Doctor did not destroy the six "forgeries" (if they could indeed be considered forgeries, since they were all painted by da Vinci), he did ensure that future X-ray machines would be able to discover their provenance by writing "THIS IS A FAKE" on the blank boards each copy would be painted on, and leaving a note for da Vinci in mirrored writing apologising for the state of the canvases and telling him to just paint over the words. (TV: City of Death [+]Loading...["City of Death (TV story)","City of Death"])
Da Vinci had to borrow oil paints from his neighbour, Giuseppe di Cattivo, to finish the seven paintings, not knowing the paints were made from a sentient meteorite di Cattivo had recovered. (TV: Mona Lisa's Revenge [+]Loading...["Mona Lisa's Revenge (TV story)","Mona Lisa's Revenge"])
Fate of the painting
Da Vinci carried the original painting around with him for many years, despite it being a commission. He eventually had to sell it to King Francis in 1516, which "broke his heart" according to the Ninth Doctor. (COMIC: Art Attack [+]Loading...["Art Attack (comic story)","Art Attack"]) Before it was sold, Helen Sinclair saw it in his studio. (AUDIO: The Doomsday Chronometer [+]Loading...["The Doomsday Chronometer (audio story)","The Doomsday Chronometer"])
In 1770, the "original" Mona Lisa was in the Palace of Versailles, (AUDIO: Masquerade [+]Loading...["Masquerade (audio story)","Masquerade"]) and was put on display in the Louvre gallery in Paris in 1797. (PROSE: The Time Lord Letters [+]Loading...["The Time Lord Letters (novel)","The Time Lord Letters"]) The six "fakes" were sealed away in a secret cellar room below a Parisian house until 1979.
In 1979 Scaroth, posing as a human named Count Scarlioni, stole the displayed copy from the Louvre, intending to sell all seven paintings to raise funds for his time travel research. Before he could do so, a fire seemingly destroyed all but one of the "fakes", and it was this Mona Lisa that was returned to the Louvre. Later, Duggan bought a postcard of the Mona Lisa from a gift shop at the top of the Eiffel Tower. (TV: City of Death [+]Loading...["City of Death (TV story)","City of Death"]) One other copy was later confirmed to have been recovered, ending up in storage at the Leamington Spa Lifeboat Museum. (GAME: Security Bot [+]Loading...["Security Bot (video game)","Security Bot"]) The Seventh Doctor had a copy of the Mona Lisa in his art gallery on board the TARDIS, and The Monk stole one for his collection during the second Dalek invasion of Earth in the 2190s; (AUDIO: Lucie Miller [+]Loading...["Lucie Miller (audio story)","Lucie Miller"]) it is unclear whether either of these were one of the two confirmed extant copies, or they were different versions that survived the fire. (AUDIO: Dust Breeding [+]Loading...["Dust Breeding (audio story)","Dust Breeding"])
Jenny Nettles once reported that the Mona Lisa was a fake. Sarah Jane Smith scoffed at this. (AUDIO: Kaleidoscope [+]Loading...["Kaleidoscope (audio story)","Kaleidoscope"]) However, it was subsequently revealed that the painting was indeed a fake on 27 August 2100, leaving the art world in turmoil. (PROSE: Time Traveller's Diary [+]Loading...["Time Traveller's Diary (novel)","Time Traveller's Diary"])
A few years prior to 2005, the Ninth Doctor saw the Mona Lisa at the Louvre and noted that he preferred the original. (PROSE: Have You Seen The Aliens Terms and Conditions [+]Loading...["Have You Seen The Aliens Terms and Conditions (feature)","Have You Seen The Aliens Terms and Conditions"])
In either 2000 or 2001, Rose Tyler and Shareen Costello bunked off from their school trip to the Louvre, missing out on seeing the Mona Lisa. (PROSE: Meet Rose [+]Loading...["Meet Rose (short story)","Meet Rose"], COMIC: Art Attack [+]Loading...["Art Attack (comic story)","Art Attack"])
In 2009, the Mona Lisa was lent by the Louvre to the International Gallery in London. This put it in proximity to di Cattivo's The Abomination [+]Loading...["The Abomination (Mona Lisa's Revenge)","The Abomination"], painted with the same sentient pigments, which caused Mona Lisa herself to become sentient; she took the form of a human outside her frame, forcing Phyllis Trupp to be there in her place. She liberated a Sontaran blaster from a painting by Clyde Langer and, assisted by art devotee Lionel Harding, began searching for The Abomination. She trapped bystanders in various paintings, including Sarah Jane Smith and several policemen, and animated The Dark Rider to take care of Clyde, Luke Smith and Rani Chandra. By the time Mona Lisa found the Abomination, she realised that to set him free, she needed di Cattivo's Chinese Puzzle Box, but Harding destroyed it. Clyde was made to draw another Puzzle Box, which she animated. Just as the Abomination rose, Luke used her energy to animate Clyde's drawing of K9, who destroyed the Abomination; Mona Lisa was returned to her rightful place in her frame, where she would remain forever. (TV: Mona Lisa's Revenge [+]Loading...["Mona Lisa's Revenge (TV story)","Mona Lisa's Revenge"]) Sometime before December 2009, the painting was returned to the Louvre. (COMIC: A Date to Remember [+]Loading...["A Date to Remember (comic story)","A Date to Remember"])
In 2022, the Mona Lisa and fourteen other paintings were removed from public view after being defaced to depict Dhawan [+]Loading...["Dhawan"] in his Grigori Rasputin disguise. (TV: The Power of the Doctor [+]Loading...["The Power of the Doctor (TV story)","The Power of the Doctor"])
The Mona Lisa survived being destroyed in World War V, and was on display at the grand opening of the Oriel art gallery. The Ninth Doctor took Rose Tyler to the Oriel in the 37th century to see the Mona Lisa. (COMIC: Art Attack [+]Loading...["Art Attack (comic story)","Art Attack"])
Despite Paris being destroyed in 2086 by the Ice Warriors, (PROSE: Transit [+]Loading...["Transit (novel)","Transit"]) the painting clearly survived, since at some point during the 51st century the Doctor helped carry the Mona Lisa up Mount Everest on a camel to preserve it from another war. (PROSE: The Art of Destruction [+]Loading...["The Art of Destruction (novel)","The Art of Destruction"])
By his eleventh incarnation, the Doctor kept a version of the Mona Lisa in his office aboard the TARDIS; this may have been the same one in the possession of the Seventh Doctor. (COMIC: The One [+]Loading...["The One (comic story)","The One"])
Imitations
When the Monks invaded Earth, their mind-controlling propaganda claimed that Mona Lisa' [+]Loading...["'"]s model was a Monk, rather than a woman. (TV: The Lie of the Land [+]Loading...["The Lie of the Land (TV story)","The Lie of the Land"])
There were at least thirteen other copies of the Mona Lisa held by UNIT in the Underbase in Sydney, Australia. (COMIC: The Age of Ice [+]Loading...["The Age of Ice (comic story)","The Age of Ice"])
A copy of the Mona Lisa, made of fabric or paper rather than the wooden panels the genuine articles were painted on, was seen in the art gallery entertainment zone of the Two Streams Facility on Apalapucia. The Eleventh Doctor told Rory Williams that the Apalapucians took "pieces" of planets they liked, causing Rory to note there was "a little bit of Earth" in the gallery because of the painting. Later, while battling Handbots, Rory smashed one over the head with the Mona Lisa to save Amy Pond, disabling the Handbot. (TV: The Girl Who Waited [+]Loading...["The Girl Who Waited (TV story)","The Girl Who Waited"])
At some point in the future, a recreation of Paris called Perfect Paris was made as an example of the perfect city. In the city's version of the Louvre hung a replica of the Mona Lisa. (COMIC: A Date to Remember [+]Loading...["A Date to Remember (comic story)","A Date to Remember"])
