The Mona Lisa is returned to the French people after two years hung on a thief’s wall
On glimpsing the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris, the first thing that strikes most visitors is quite how small it is. But Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic portrait is the very definition of a priceless painting; owned by the people of France, she can never be bought or sold. Despite being one of the most talked about artworks in history she remains enshrined in mystery And while we will never know what she was smiling about, we explore what we do now know about the world’s most famous painting from page 28.